Transcript - America This Week, Sept 19, 2025: Kimmel, Kirk, and The Speech Crisis Strikes Back

After years of First Amendment threats in the digital realm, Trump’s FCC aims at the public airwaves. Also, wrapping up The Hound of the Baskervilles

Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America This Week. I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how goes it?

Walter Kirn: Goes well. Nice fall day in Livingston, Montana, and I’m working hard on my book. But I have been distracted I have to admit by this whole Charlie Kirk tragedy and the ensuing affairs that touch my big issues, free speech, free expression, artistic license, and so on.

Matt Taibbi: They can’t let us enjoy a single thing in this country, Walter. Just, I was all ready to have a nice little schadenfreude moment over Jimmy Kimmel getting whacked. And next thing you know, we have this whole brouhaha. Actually, it preceded, the brouhaha actually preceded the whacking, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Walter Kirn: But listen, we were told a couple of months ago that Jimmy Kimmel was on his way out. And I have friends in the very small world of late night comedy hosting, of which there are less than 10 people probably. And so that before we get into the-

Matt Taibbi: Well, you’re on one of those shows, so.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, and I go on one of those shows and I’m friends with the host. And showbiz is gossip world, and Jimmy was on his way out. And before we touch on the legal and social and political and constitutional issues, there’s nothing that an entertainer knows in their bones more completely and profoundly than when they’re about to get the hook. And he knew it in his bones, and that he chose to go out in this way. Whatever else is true of this situation tells me that he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be a martyr. He got maybe some of that martyrdom envy from Charlie Kirk. And he also needed a launchpad for whatever his next enterprise is going to be. I think it will be a version of Abbot Costello, but it will be Lemon and Kimmel. Maybe they’ll get a funny car like in Dumb and Dumber like a van, and they’ll drive around the country, Lemon and Kimmel.

Matt Taibbi: They could revive Herbie. That would be funny.

Yeah. Look, his Q1 numbers this year were incredible. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen anything quite like that before. If I remember correctly, it was some ridiculous drop off compared even to the other two. Q2 wasn’t so bad. It was 3% below Q1, but Q1 was a huge drop in itself.

But okay, who are we talking about? We’re talking about Jimmy Kimmel. And let’s just go in the order of operations. He did a dickish thing, which isn’t surprising. I guess, let’s start with a montage that our own mystery producer put together of Jimmy Kimmel over the recent years. This is the host of The Tonight Show.

Walter Kirn: No, it’s not called The Tonight Show. What’s it called?

Matt Taibbi: Oh, Tonight Show. I’m sorry. The ...

Walter Kirn: I don’t even really know what it’s called, frankly. The Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Matt Taibbi: Jimmy Kimmel Show, right? It’s ABC. I forget. This is the one without the Titanic historical background, right? So he’s not inheriting the mantle of Johnny Carson or Letterman, but he is a huge asshole from Massachusetts.

Is he from Massachusetts?

Walter Kirn: I don’t know, man.

Matt Taibbi: Anyway. Look, the different late night hosts have responded to the Trump era in different ways. Some of them have tried to become kooky, hokey propagandists like Colbert.

Walter Kirn: Well, Kimmel’s tried that too. Vaccine Barbie and Anti-Vax Barbie. Just ‘cause he can’t pull it off.

Matt Taibbi: Well, no, but his whole thing is nasty, right?

Walter Kirn: Right. Right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. He’s nasty guy. He’s the nasty guy.

Matt Taibbi: He’s not the kindler, gentler comic.

Walter Kirn: Colbert is the ironist, the sort of pseudo-intellectual pointing out hypocrisy and contradiction. Kimmel is just a guy who, I don’t know, I hate to be this way, but he’s one of those dogs when you go to Central America that comes up to you at the outdoor cafe and just goes ... and you’re just not sure that it’s healthy.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, he’s definitely going for the ... It’s the mean girls act from high school. He’s the guy who picked on you in the cafeteria if he could get away with it. Look, there was always a place for these guys in media. He’s not the safe date comic that they would sometimes have in these slots. It’s a little nasty.

But he went in such an abject political direction in the Trump years that it became a thing. I mean, it was like a game of one-up-smanship between all of them, and he went way beyond everybody else. So let’s just start with that. We put together this little montage. This is sort of the greatest un-hits of Jimmy Kimmel in the Trump era: