“The View” co-hosts finally have something to say about “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” being put on indefinite hold.
“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” Whoopi Goldberg asked at the top of Monday’s show. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? You know, no one silences us.”
Not a word was said about the news in the two episodes after the late-night show was suddenly suspended, prompting viewers and commentators to speculate that “The View” and Kimmel’s mutual parent company, ABC, had directed the panelists to stay quiet.
Explaining why they waited to weigh in on one of the most pressing news events of the moment, Goldberg said, “When the news broke last week about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, we took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first.”
Goldberg told her fellow panelists she saw Kimmel’s suspension as a clear example of the government using its power to suppress the right to free speech.
“You cannot like a show and it can go off the air. Someone can say something they shouldn’t and get taken off the air. But the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced,” Goldberg said.
Ana Navarro agreed, adding, “I don’t understand how in this country, where the First Amendment was made to the Constitution to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of speech, how the government itself is using its weight and power to bully and scare people into silence.”
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Alyssa Farah Griffin, one of the show’s conservative-leaning voices, was on the same page, telling everyone, “The First Amendment is the first for a reason, because you need to be able to hold those in power accountable.”
Just hours later, ABC announced it would be letting Kimmel return to air on Tuesday night.
White House spokesperson Steven Cheung slammed both Kimmel and “The View” while reacting to ABC’s heel turn in a statement provided to Entertainment Weekly.
“Jimmy Kimmel is a no-talent loser who has beclowned himself with tanking ratings and by spewing disgusting lies to his audience,” the statement said. “That’s why the network kicked him to the curb like a used empty beer can.”
“Similarly, ‘The View’ is also devoid of actual talent, and is a collection of irrelevant has-beens and never-beens that nobody with any commonsense [sic] would ever watch unless it was to laugh at them.”
While Kimmel will soon be back on air, “The View” appears to be one of President Donald Trump’s next targets.
Last Thursday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested his agency was interested in reevaluating “The View’s” status as a “bona fide news” program.
That designation exempts the show from the FCC’s “equal opportunity rule,” which mandates that non-news programs give opposing political candidates equal time on the air.
Trump has long seen “The View” as a thorn in his side, calling the hosts “really dumb people” at a rally last year, in addition to wishing it would be “pulled off air” back in July.
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