September 21, 2025 • 19 mins
Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made comments in his opening monologue about the death of right wing activist Charlie Kirk and days later, his show was pulled from broadcast.
In a country so proud of its constitution and freedom of speech, this seems to fly in the face of all they hold patriotically dear, but this isn't the first time America has shone a political spotlight on its entertainers.
Today we investigate the long history of US politics and Hollywood colliding.
And in headlines today, Australia, the UK and Canada have now formally recognised a Palestinian state, prompting a furious response from Israel; Israeli forces have blown up more residential buildings in Gaza City, killing at least 31 Palestinians and prompting many others to flee; As the fallout continues from the Optus outage - linked to four deaths - the telco's chief executive Stephen Rue offered a guarantee Optus would not let a similar thing happen again in the future; A memorial service for murdered right wing activist Charlie Kirk has been held in Phoenix today, with the US President Donald Trump expected to address the crowd
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Hosts: Claire Murphy
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Guest: John Barron - co-host of the ABC's Planet America
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on Hi. I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mumma
MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie. A lot is
being said after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for making a
comment about the way Trump supporters have handled the aftermath
(00:32):
of the assassination of right wing activist Charlie Kirk. In
a country so very proud of its constitution and its
support of freedom of speech, it seems that freedom is
now under threat. But it's not the first time US
politics and its entertainment industry have come to blows. Before
we go there, here's the latest from the Quickie newsroom
for Monday, September twenty two. Australia, the UK and Canada
(00:55):
have now formally recognized a Palestinian state, prompting a furious
response from Israel. The decision by the Trio, which have
been traditional allies of Israel, align them with more than
one hundred and forty other countries also backing the Palestinian
aspiration to forge an independent homeland from the Israeli occupied territories.
In a bid to build momentum for a two state solution,
(01:16):
as humanitarians suffering in Gaza worsens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya,
who condemned the move, writing on social media. I have
a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian
state after the horrific massacre of October seven, you are
giving a huge reward to terrorism, he said, referring to
Palestinian militant group Hamasa's twenty twenty three attack on Israel
(01:39):
that triggered the nearly two year war in Gaza. He
went on to say, and I have another message for you.
It will not happen. A Palestinian state will not be
established west of the Jordan River. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have
blown up more residential buildings in Gaza City, killing at
least thirty one Palestinians and prompting many others to flee.
Almost two years into the war, Israel's tanks pushed further
(02:01):
into the densely populated city that the IDF says is
the last bastion of Hamas, demolishing housing blocks it says
are being used by the militant group since launching its
ground assault in the city earlier in September. A pregnant
woman and her two children were amongst those killed on Sunday.
Israel did not comment on the civilian debts, but issued
a statement saying its forces had killed numerous militants. As
(02:24):
the fallout continues from the OPTAs outage linked to four deaths,
to Telco's chief executive, Stephen Rue, offered a guarantee that
Optus would not let a similar thing happen again in
the future. His assurance came despite a barrage of criticism
of OPTAs for failing to implement recommendations from a review
into a similar national outage that crippled the network in
twenty twenty three. A third of the eighteen review recommendations
(02:48):
stemming from that outage, which resulted in fines totaling more
than twelve million dollars, a yet to be implemented. Early
investigations into Thursday's incident appeared to show established processes were
not followed, with a botched firewall update blocking hundreds of
triple zero calls from Optus customers in South Australia, Western Australia,
parts of Western New South Wales and the Northern Territory
(03:10):
an eight week old boy from Gaula West, north of Adelaide,
was among four deaths linked to the fault, but SA
police say the outage was unlikely to have contributed to
the boy's death because his grandmother immediately used another phone
to contact Triple zero after her initial call failed. A
memorial service for murdered right wing activist Charlie Kirk has
been held in Phoenix today, with the US President Donald
(03:31):
Trump expected to address the crowd. Kirk was shot through
the neck while attending an event at a university in
Utah on September ten. A twenty two year old man
has been arrested as the suspected gunman. Guests at the
service include Elon musk Us, Vice president j d Vance,
right wing conspiracy theorist Laura Luma, and Kyl Rittenhouse, a
man who at seventeen shot dead to men at a
(03:53):
rally in Wisconsin. The crowd inside the event is estimated
to be more than seventy thousand, with more gathered outside,
including members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, who regularly
gather at the funerals of members of the LGBTQ community
to mock mourners, along with Trump speaking. JD Vance will
also take to the stage, as will defend Secretary Pete Hexeth,
(04:14):
Donald Trump Junior, and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. Next, we
find out why politics and entertainment are clashing in America
once again. There's actually quite a long history of US
television being caught up in the country's political controversy of
(04:35):
the moment. In the nineteen forties and fifties, for example,
the paranoia fostered by the anti Communist movement and spearheaded
by Senator Joseph McCarthy, became known as the Red Scare.
The movement would boycott advertisers on TV shows that employed
anyone who'd been blacklisted that was based on a list
created by the FBI of anyone known to be a
(04:57):
communist or a supporter. They circulated that list amongst TV
stations and sponsors and called for those individuals to be
fired immediately and treated as Traitorsullivan, the host of the
show Toast of the Town, used that list to clear
any potential guests for the show. That list destroyed careers.
(05:19):
The Smothers Brother's comedy Hour in the nineteen sixties was
canceled for its anti war and anti establishment material during
the Vietnam War. Roseanne's reboot was axed after its star
Roseanne Barr tweeted racist commentary about former Obama AID Valerie
Jarrett Now. Late last week, US President Donald Trump celebrated
the suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for comments
(05:42):
around the assassination of right wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who
murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
On Air Force One, speaking to reporters as he returned
to the US from visiting with King Charles, Trump said
that he'd read that ninety seven percent of television networks
are against him and only gave him bad publicity, saying
he thinks maybe their licenses should be taken away. Mension
comes on the heels of the announcement that Stephen Colbert's
talk show would be ending in twenty twenty six, Trump
(06:15):
posting on his social media platform that leaves Jimmy and
Seth two total losers on fake news NBC. Their ratings
are also horrible. Do at NBC to waghe through the
politics of entertainment is the co host of Planet America,
John Barron. John Baron, thank you so much for joining us.
There is a lot happening in the world of US
(06:36):
entertainment and politics right now, and so first of all,
I wanted to get your idea. Ron. I've given us
a little bit of a history lesson about the McCarthy
of the era and how it impacted US entertainers. Are
we seeing that happening all over again now? Can we
draw similar conclusions about what we're seeing with hosts like
Kimmel being suspended for commentary about Charlie Kirk's assassination, Well,
(07:00):
we can.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Certainly draw parallels. I'm always of the view clear that
history doesn't so much repeaters rhyme. We hear similarities, there
are echoes. It's never an exact replication, but certainly there
are reasons to feel as though that early nineteen fifties
of anti communist witch hunt era, where the likes of
Joe McCarthy and others in the US Congress, including future
(07:23):
Vice President and President Richard Nixon, we're going after suspected
communists in branches of government, the military, and of course
the entertainment industry that led to those blacklists where people
with communistic tendencies or left wing political views were sometimes
stopped from working because of the pressure brought to bear
by those hearings, and to an extent, you can say
(07:46):
this is a new kind of McCarthyism, the fact that
the Trump administration is prepared to use whatever leverage they
have to pressure networks to drop presenters such as Jimmy
Kimmel that they see as being a thorn in their side,
not on their side, constantly making jokes at Donald Trump's expense.
The Federal Communications Commission in the United States is using
(08:09):
the power of threatening to block mergers that some of
these big media companies want to do, or threatening to
withdraw the broadcast licenses of if not the major network
headquarters which are large and powerful, the more vulnerable affiliated
stations in smaller markets around the United States, who might
be accused of putting things to air, such as Jimmy
Kimmel that the FC ide, well, that was fake news,
(08:32):
that was incorrect, what he said about the alleged killer
of Charlie Kirk, and so on. In the sense that
this is a kind of a witch hunt and it
is coming from politicians, it is similar. The difference, of course,
is that this is coming from the president. It is
starting with the President of the United States, and the irony.
In fact, it's really hypocrisy that this is all being
(08:54):
done in the name of preserving the legacy of a
free speech warrior in Charlie Kirk. They are shutting down
free speech to honor a free speech advocate. It makes
no logical sense at all.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We mentioned there about potentially canceling broadcast licenses. Donald Trump
has said this out loud to report as a couple
of times now that that's something that he would like
to see happen. Because he gets so much negative coverage
from the TV networks. How much power does he have
to make that actually happen. Can he do that?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's an incredible talent that Donald Trump has. Is a
little bit like the schoolyard bully who can just at
first glance see that you're sensitive about the glasses you wear,
or the way you do your hair, or the braces
on your teeth, and he goes right for that. We
saw it in real terms when ABC reporter John Lyons
asked Donald Trump about how much he'd made in business
(09:45):
since returning to the presidency in January, and to question
whether it was appropriate for somebody making a huge amount
of money out of being president of the United States.
Businesses aren't just continuing without him while he's being president again,
but that are actually profiting because of the influence in
the access that Trump has as president. He's monetizing the president. Well.
Trump's response that we saw and was shown around the
(10:06):
world this week was to say that John Lyons, you're
damaging Australia. Entry wants to be nice to me at
the moment, knowing that Anthony Albanezi is about to go
over there and they want to keep the Orcat Submarine
Agreement and they don't want to get tariffs, increased birth
and the current ten percent that Trump has already imposed
on Australia and most of the rest of the world.
So he was immediately able to say, ah, you're Australian, right,
here's how I bully you. Trump is doing the same
(10:29):
thing through the Federal Communications Commission. He's also doing it,
of course, through the United States Justice Department and the FBI,
investigating his former political rivals, setting the Justice Department onto
Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Bill
Clinton and all of these people that don't like Donald Trump,
and Donald Trump doesn't like previous presidents have not gone
(10:52):
this far. Clear, they haven't weaponized the Justice Department, they
haven't weaponized supposedly independent organizations such as the Federal Communications Commission.
And indeed, we're seeing the politicization of public health in
the United States, with unscientific views now being made government
police and the policy of the Centers for Disease Control
around things like vaccine safety. We're getting into very, very
(11:15):
dangerous territory. But there are those who say, look, once
you start to shut down descent in the form of comedians,
it may not seem that serious. But one thing that
all dictators have in common is they don't like to
be ridiculed. And when you start to silence people for
making jokes about you, that is actually a very very
slippery slope. It may not appear as serious as it is.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
John if you were an American late night TV show host,
and there's dwindling numbers of those now, if you think
Colbert will be off the air in twenty twenty six,
would you change the way you approach politics now in
your opening monologues, would you start to censor yourself in
order to remain on the air, and how do some
others get away with it? I mean South Park are notorious.
(11:59):
I mean they did that episode of Trump literally in
bed with Satan, Like, will you see self censorship start
to happen?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Now you think, well, you're right to suggest that self
censorship is the other part of this. Trump can exert
a lot of power over people. It can threaten to
take away licenses, take away people's liberty, take away their money.
But it's the chilling effect that that has on people.
And this is one of the ways that in beyond
American politics, some media proprietors media moguls have exerted ideological
(12:26):
influence over their mast heads and their media outlets, not
necessarily by sending a memo to every journalist every week
to say this is our stance on this issue and
I want you to write this or whatever. But people
get a sense of what is approved and what is not,
what line to take on issues like climate change, and
what story is to you know, don't go too heavily
on these s'ts of stories. The bosses won't like it,
(12:47):
or in this case, the President won't like it. That's
the what effect this has on the other late night shows.
If you go back to the nineteen nineties, look at
an old episode of David Letterman's Tonight Show. He didn't
talk politics that much, and if he did, you didn't
really know what he thought about it. He was just
as likely to have Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole on
in nineteen ninety six as he was to have President
(13:07):
Clinton on the program. He would make jokes about both sides,
and certainly that was the case. You get back to
the seventies and eighties Johnny Carson before him, Johnny Carson
would occasionally make jokes about what was in the news,
but it wasn't a constant narrative to essentially say Donald
Trump is ridiculous and a bad person. That is the
heart of most of the humor that Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy fallon.
(13:30):
To a lesser extent, certainly Seth Myers and Stephen Colbert,
they're anti Trump. There's nothing illegal about that. In fact,
it is guaranteed by the American Constitution, the right to
free speech. It's the first Amendment. They're allowed to do that.
Then it's just up to individuals just where they choose
to watch that for their nightly entertainment. But Jimmy Kimmel
and the other late night hosts are at a vulnerable
(13:51):
moment now because, as we know, broadcast TV audiences are dwindling,
so they can command less money from their advertisers. Those
shows are expensive, those our long shows which sometimes go
to eric midnight one o'clock in the morning, They've got
a live studio audience that needs to be wrangled. They've
got a live band in many cases, although Seth Myers
(14:12):
gave his up as a cost cutting measure, But that
old variety tonight show format pioneered back in the nineteen
fifties with the likes of Jack Parr and Steve Allen
and then Johnny Carson. It's old school TV that is
dying a slow death. It died in Australia, I guess
with the Don Lane Show in the nineteen eighties. It's
no longer really viable in the US, which is why
they're winding them down and why Jimmy Kimmel was vulnerable
(14:33):
to being taken off this week for saying things I
might add as to whether it would be a have
a chilling effect on me if I was in that situation.
We made pretty much the same jokes as Jimmy Kimmel
about Trump's weird reaction when he was asked about Charlie
Kirk's death, and Trump very quickly says, yeah, well, we're
building a fantastic ballroom here at the White House. It
was a strange pivot. Maybe there's something done out of
grief not wanting to show his sadness, or maybe Trump
(14:56):
really just you know, it's kind of a bumblebee going
from one topic to another. Yeah, I'm sad about Charlie,
but hey, we're putting a lot more gold leaf into
the White House and there's ballroom we're building. It's hard
to know what was going through his mind. Jimmy Kimmel
was kind of raising an eyebrow at it. Did we
we got complaints, We got people saying that we shouldn't
be saying anything bad about Charlie Kirk, that we shouldn't
(15:16):
be making jokes, that we shouldn't be pointing out ridiculous
things that Trump says. Fortunately, ABC Australia is a little
bit more forgiving than ABC America because I guess we've
got a different funding structure.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Just finally, John, I want to does get your idea
on what freedom of speech actually means to Americans because
it's in the Constitution. As you said, it's a point
that is made over and over and over again in
any debate that seems to happen in any kind of
US political circles, and yet it seems either side are
very quick to shut down the other when it comes
to anything that they don't want to hear. Is freedom
(15:47):
of speech real for Americans?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's real in the sense that it is in the
Constitution and has been tested many, many times. Most famously,
the test was you're free to say many, many things,
but you're not free to shout fire in a crowded theater.
That was an analogy that was used by a Supreme
Court justice over a century ago. So you can't say
things that are going to incite panic and potentially risk lives.
(16:12):
The test for what is free speech and what is
hate speech in the United States has also been explored,
and it really goes down to you can say a
lot of things, a lot of bad things, but unless
you're literally saying and I want you to go out
and kill people who we don't agree with, if it's
not an immediate incitement to violence, then it is covered.
(16:32):
It is protected free speech. So you can be racist,
you can be transphobic, you can say a lot of
things that people will find objectionable and it is still
protected by the Constitution. But you're right, there is a
huge amount of hypocrisy both sides of politics. Claire tend
to say, free speech is what I believe, and I'm
going to say what I want to say. But if
you say something I don't agree with, you should be stopped.
(16:53):
You shouldn't be allowed to say those things. And it's
something that a lot of people, all of us have
our blind spots, and this is a massive blind spot,
and right now that we're seeing the Trump administration essentially
say that if you even joke about Donald Trump, you
are supporting left wing terrorism. Because Donald Trump was the
(17:13):
target of an attempt assassination twice last year Charlie Kirk,
they killed him. So you're mocking of Trump. You're not
even mocking him. You're seriously saying he's showing autocratic or
fascistic tendencies, or that he's a racist, or that he
is a sexist, or he's a transphone. Even if you
believe those things they're saying, don't say them because you
are inciting violence, and that goes to what is the
(17:34):
definition of hate speech? So there is method to this,
but it is profoundly hypocritical.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So how did John Stewart react when he sat down
on the Daily Show desk that next night?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
But in America, we have a little something called the
First Amendment. And let me tell you how it works.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
There's something called a talent ometer. It's a completely scientific
instrument that is kept on the President's desk and it
tells the president when a performer's tick talent Porsche, measured mostly.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
By nice to the President goes below a certain level,
at which point the FCC must be notified to threaten
the acquisition prospects for billion dollar mergers of network affiliates.
These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to the
even larger mega corporation that controls the flow of state
of proof content or the FCZ. He can just choose
to threaten those licenses directly.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's basic science.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Well, how about Jimmy Fallon over on the tonight show.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, a lot of people are worried that we won't
keep saying what we want to say, or that will
be censored. But I'm going to cover the President's trip
to the UK, just like I normally would. Here we go, Well, guys,
President Trump just wrapped up his three day trip to
the UK.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And he looked incredibly hands.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
That seems they didn't receive Trump's memo thanks for taking
some time to feed your mind with us today. The
quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy, with audio production
by lu Hill.
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on Hi. I'm Claire Murphy. This is Mumma
MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie. A lot is
being said after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for making a
comment about the way Trump supporters have handled the aftermath
(00:32):
of the assassination of right wing activist Charlie Kirk. In
a country so very proud of its constitution and its
support of freedom of speech, it seems that freedom is
now under threat. But it's not the first time US
politics and its entertainment industry have come to blows. Before
we go there, here's the latest from the Quickie newsroom
for Monday, September twenty two. Australia, the UK and Canada
(00:55):
have now formally recognized a Palestinian state, prompting a furious
response from Israel. The decision by the Trio, which have
been traditional allies of Israel, align them with more than
one hundred and forty other countries also backing the Palestinian
aspiration to forge an independent homeland from the Israeli occupied territories.
In a bid to build momentum for a two state solution,
(01:16):
as humanitarians suffering in Gaza worsens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya,
who condemned the move, writing on social media. I have
a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian
state after the horrific massacre of October seven, you are
giving a huge reward to terrorism, he said, referring to
Palestinian militant group Hamasa's twenty twenty three attack on Israel
(01:39):
that triggered the nearly two year war in Gaza. He
went on to say, and I have another message for you.
It will not happen. A Palestinian state will not be
established west of the Jordan River. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have
blown up more residential buildings in Gaza City, killing at
least thirty one Palestinians and prompting many others to flee.
Almost two years into the war, Israel's tanks pushed further
(02:01):
into the densely populated city that the IDF says is
the last bastion of Hamas, demolishing housing blocks it says
are being used by the militant group since launching its
ground assault in the city earlier in September. A pregnant
woman and her two children were amongst those killed on Sunday.
Israel did not comment on the civilian debts, but issued
a statement saying its forces had killed numerous militants. As
(02:24):
the fallout continues from the OPTAs outage linked to four deaths,
to Telco's chief executive, Stephen Rue, offered a guarantee that
Optus would not let a similar thing happen again in
the future. His assurance came despite a barrage of criticism
of OPTAs for failing to implement recommendations from a review
into a similar national outage that crippled the network in
twenty twenty three. A third of the eighteen review recommendations
(02:48):
stemming from that outage, which resulted in fines totaling more
than twelve million dollars, a yet to be implemented. Early
investigations into Thursday's incident appeared to show established processes were
not followed, with a botched firewall update blocking hundreds of
triple zero calls from Optus customers in South Australia, Western Australia,
parts of Western New South Wales and the Northern Territory
(03:10):
an eight week old boy from Gaula West, north of Adelaide,
was among four deaths linked to the fault, but SA
police say the outage was unlikely to have contributed to
the boy's death because his grandmother immediately used another phone
to contact Triple zero after her initial call failed. A
memorial service for murdered right wing activist Charlie Kirk has
been held in Phoenix today, with the US President Donald
(03:31):
Trump expected to address the crowd. Kirk was shot through
the neck while attending an event at a university in
Utah on September ten. A twenty two year old man
has been arrested as the suspected gunman. Guests at the
service include Elon musk Us, Vice president j d Vance,
right wing conspiracy theorist Laura Luma, and Kyl Rittenhouse, a
man who at seventeen shot dead to men at a
(03:53):
rally in Wisconsin. The crowd inside the event is estimated
to be more than seventy thousand, with more gathered outside,
including members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church, who regularly
gather at the funerals of members of the LGBTQ community
to mock mourners, along with Trump speaking. JD Vance will
also take to the stage, as will defend Secretary Pete Hexeth,
(04:14):
Donald Trump Junior, and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. Next, we
find out why politics and entertainment are clashing in America
once again. There's actually quite a long history of US
television being caught up in the country's political controversy of
(04:35):
the moment. In the nineteen forties and fifties, for example,
the paranoia fostered by the anti Communist movement and spearheaded
by Senator Joseph McCarthy, became known as the Red Scare.
The movement would boycott advertisers on TV shows that employed
anyone who'd been blacklisted that was based on a list
created by the FBI of anyone known to be a
(04:57):
communist or a supporter. They circulated that list amongst TV
stations and sponsors and called for those individuals to be
fired immediately and treated as Traitorsullivan, the host of the
show Toast of the Town, used that list to clear
any potential guests for the show. That list destroyed careers.
(05:19):
The Smothers Brother's comedy Hour in the nineteen sixties was
canceled for its anti war and anti establishment material during
the Vietnam War. Roseanne's reboot was axed after its star
Roseanne Barr tweeted racist commentary about former Obama AID Valerie
Jarrett Now. Late last week, US President Donald Trump celebrated
the suspension of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for comments
(05:42):
around the assassination of right wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
The Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who
murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
On Air Force One, speaking to reporters as he returned
to the US from visiting with King Charles, Trump said
that he'd read that ninety seven percent of television networks
are against him and only gave him bad publicity, saying
he thinks maybe their licenses should be taken away. Mension
comes on the heels of the announcement that Stephen Colbert's
talk show would be ending in twenty twenty six, Trump
(06:15):
posting on his social media platform that leaves Jimmy and
Seth two total losers on fake news NBC. Their ratings
are also horrible. Do at NBC to waghe through the
politics of entertainment is the co host of Planet America,
John Barron. John Baron, thank you so much for joining us.
There is a lot happening in the world of US
(06:36):
entertainment and politics right now, and so first of all,
I wanted to get your idea. Ron. I've given us
a little bit of a history lesson about the McCarthy
of the era and how it impacted US entertainers. Are
we seeing that happening all over again now? Can we
draw similar conclusions about what we're seeing with hosts like
Kimmel being suspended for commentary about Charlie Kirk's assassination, Well,
(07:00):
we can.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Certainly draw parallels. I'm always of the view clear that
history doesn't so much repeaters rhyme. We hear similarities, there
are echoes. It's never an exact replication, but certainly there
are reasons to feel as though that early nineteen fifties
of anti communist witch hunt era, where the likes of
Joe McCarthy and others in the US Congress, including future
(07:23):
Vice President and President Richard Nixon, we're going after suspected
communists in branches of government, the military, and of course
the entertainment industry that led to those blacklists where people
with communistic tendencies or left wing political views were sometimes
stopped from working because of the pressure brought to bear
by those hearings, and to an extent, you can say
(07:46):
this is a new kind of McCarthyism, the fact that
the Trump administration is prepared to use whatever leverage they
have to pressure networks to drop presenters such as Jimmy
Kimmel that they see as being a thorn in their side,
not on their side, constantly making jokes at Donald Trump's expense.
The Federal Communications Commission in the United States is using
(08:09):
the power of threatening to block mergers that some of
these big media companies want to do, or threatening to
withdraw the broadcast licenses of if not the major network
headquarters which are large and powerful, the more vulnerable affiliated
stations in smaller markets around the United States, who might
be accused of putting things to air, such as Jimmy
Kimmel that the FC ide, well, that was fake news,
(08:32):
that was incorrect, what he said about the alleged killer
of Charlie Kirk, and so on. In the sense that
this is a kind of a witch hunt and it
is coming from politicians, it is similar. The difference, of course,
is that this is coming from the president. It is
starting with the President of the United States, and the irony.
In fact, it's really hypocrisy that this is all being
(08:54):
done in the name of preserving the legacy of a
free speech warrior in Charlie Kirk. They are shutting down
free speech to honor a free speech advocate. It makes
no logical sense at all.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We mentioned there about potentially canceling broadcast licenses. Donald Trump
has said this out loud to report as a couple
of times now that that's something that he would like
to see happen. Because he gets so much negative coverage
from the TV networks. How much power does he have
to make that actually happen. Can he do that?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It's an incredible talent that Donald Trump has. Is a
little bit like the schoolyard bully who can just at
first glance see that you're sensitive about the glasses you wear,
or the way you do your hair, or the braces
on your teeth, and he goes right for that. We
saw it in real terms when ABC reporter John Lyons
asked Donald Trump about how much he'd made in business
(09:45):
since returning to the presidency in January, and to question
whether it was appropriate for somebody making a huge amount
of money out of being president of the United States.
Businesses aren't just continuing without him while he's being president again,
but that are actually profiting because of the influence in
the access that Trump has as president. He's monetizing the president. Well.
Trump's response that we saw and was shown around the
(10:06):
world this week was to say that John Lyons, you're
damaging Australia. Entry wants to be nice to me at
the moment, knowing that Anthony Albanezi is about to go
over there and they want to keep the Orcat Submarine
Agreement and they don't want to get tariffs, increased birth
and the current ten percent that Trump has already imposed
on Australia and most of the rest of the world.
So he was immediately able to say, ah, you're Australian, right,
here's how I bully you. Trump is doing the same
(10:29):
thing through the Federal Communications Commission. He's also doing it,
of course, through the United States Justice Department and the FBI,
investigating his former political rivals, setting the Justice Department onto
Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Bill
Clinton and all of these people that don't like Donald Trump,
and Donald Trump doesn't like previous presidents have not gone
(10:52):
this far. Clear, they haven't weaponized the Justice Department, they
haven't weaponized supposedly independent organizations such as the Federal Communications Commission.
And indeed, we're seeing the politicization of public health in
the United States, with unscientific views now being made government
police and the policy of the Centers for Disease Control
around things like vaccine safety. We're getting into very, very
(11:15):
dangerous territory. But there are those who say, look, once
you start to shut down descent in the form of comedians,
it may not seem that serious. But one thing that
all dictators have in common is they don't like to
be ridiculed. And when you start to silence people for
making jokes about you, that is actually a very very
slippery slope. It may not appear as serious as it is.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
John if you were an American late night TV show host,
and there's dwindling numbers of those now, if you think
Colbert will be off the air in twenty twenty six,
would you change the way you approach politics now in
your opening monologues, would you start to censor yourself in
order to remain on the air, and how do some
others get away with it? I mean South Park are notorious.
(11:59):
I mean they did that episode of Trump literally in
bed with Satan, Like, will you see self censorship start
to happen?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Now you think, well, you're right to suggest that self
censorship is the other part of this. Trump can exert
a lot of power over people. It can threaten to
take away licenses, take away people's liberty, take away their money.
But it's the chilling effect that that has on people.
And this is one of the ways that in beyond
American politics, some media proprietors media moguls have exerted ideological
(12:26):
influence over their mast heads and their media outlets, not
necessarily by sending a memo to every journalist every week
to say this is our stance on this issue and
I want you to write this or whatever. But people
get a sense of what is approved and what is not,
what line to take on issues like climate change, and
what story is to you know, don't go too heavily
on these s'ts of stories. The bosses won't like it,
(12:47):
or in this case, the President won't like it. That's
the what effect this has on the other late night shows.
If you go back to the nineteen nineties, look at
an old episode of David Letterman's Tonight Show. He didn't
talk politics that much, and if he did, you didn't
really know what he thought about it. He was just
as likely to have Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole on
in nineteen ninety six as he was to have President
(13:07):
Clinton on the program. He would make jokes about both sides,
and certainly that was the case. You get back to
the seventies and eighties Johnny Carson before him, Johnny Carson
would occasionally make jokes about what was in the news,
but it wasn't a constant narrative to essentially say Donald
Trump is ridiculous and a bad person. That is the
heart of most of the humor that Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy fallon.
(13:30):
To a lesser extent, certainly Seth Myers and Stephen Colbert,
they're anti Trump. There's nothing illegal about that. In fact,
it is guaranteed by the American Constitution, the right to
free speech. It's the first Amendment. They're allowed to do that.
Then it's just up to individuals just where they choose
to watch that for their nightly entertainment. But Jimmy Kimmel
and the other late night hosts are at a vulnerable
(13:51):
moment now because, as we know, broadcast TV audiences are dwindling,
so they can command less money from their advertisers. Those
shows are expensive, those our long shows which sometimes go
to eric midnight one o'clock in the morning, They've got
a live studio audience that needs to be wrangled. They've
got a live band in many cases, although Seth Myers
(14:12):
gave his up as a cost cutting measure, But that
old variety tonight show format pioneered back in the nineteen
fifties with the likes of Jack Parr and Steve Allen
and then Johnny Carson. It's old school TV that is
dying a slow death. It died in Australia, I guess
with the Don Lane Show in the nineteen eighties. It's
no longer really viable in the US, which is why
they're winding them down and why Jimmy Kimmel was vulnerable
(14:33):
to being taken off this week for saying things I
might add as to whether it would be a have
a chilling effect on me if I was in that situation.
We made pretty much the same jokes as Jimmy Kimmel
about Trump's weird reaction when he was asked about Charlie
Kirk's death, and Trump very quickly says, yeah, well, we're
building a fantastic ballroom here at the White House. It
was a strange pivot. Maybe there's something done out of
grief not wanting to show his sadness, or maybe Trump
(14:56):
really just you know, it's kind of a bumblebee going
from one topic to another. Yeah, I'm sad about Charlie,
but hey, we're putting a lot more gold leaf into
the White House and there's ballroom we're building. It's hard
to know what was going through his mind. Jimmy Kimmel
was kind of raising an eyebrow at it. Did we
we got complaints, We got people saying that we shouldn't
be saying anything bad about Charlie Kirk, that we shouldn't
(15:16):
be making jokes, that we shouldn't be pointing out ridiculous
things that Trump says. Fortunately, ABC Australia is a little
bit more forgiving than ABC America because I guess we've
got a different funding structure.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Just finally, John, I want to does get your idea
on what freedom of speech actually means to Americans because
it's in the Constitution. As you said, it's a point
that is made over and over and over again in
any debate that seems to happen in any kind of
US political circles, and yet it seems either side are
very quick to shut down the other when it comes
to anything that they don't want to hear. Is freedom
(15:47):
of speech real for Americans?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's real in the sense that it is in the
Constitution and has been tested many, many times. Most famously,
the test was you're free to say many, many things,
but you're not free to shout fire in a crowded theater.
That was an analogy that was used by a Supreme
Court justice over a century ago. So you can't say
things that are going to incite panic and potentially risk lives.
(16:12):
The test for what is free speech and what is
hate speech in the United States has also been explored,
and it really goes down to you can say a
lot of things, a lot of bad things, but unless
you're literally saying and I want you to go out
and kill people who we don't agree with, if it's
not an immediate incitement to violence, then it is covered.
(16:32):
It is protected free speech. So you can be racist,
you can be transphobic, you can say a lot of
things that people will find objectionable and it is still
protected by the Constitution. But you're right, there is a
huge amount of hypocrisy both sides of politics. Claire tend
to say, free speech is what I believe, and I'm
going to say what I want to say. But if
you say something I don't agree with, you should be stopped.
(16:53):
You shouldn't be allowed to say those things. And it's
something that a lot of people, all of us have
our blind spots, and this is a massive blind spot,
and right now that we're seeing the Trump administration essentially
say that if you even joke about Donald Trump, you
are supporting left wing terrorism. Because Donald Trump was the
(17:13):
target of an attempt assassination twice last year Charlie Kirk,
they killed him. So you're mocking of Trump. You're not
even mocking him. You're seriously saying he's showing autocratic or
fascistic tendencies, or that he's a racist, or that he
is a sexist, or he's a transphone. Even if you
believe those things they're saying, don't say them because you
are inciting violence, and that goes to what is the
(17:34):
definition of hate speech? So there is method to this,
but it is profoundly hypocritical.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
So how did John Stewart react when he sat down
on the Daily Show desk that next night?
Speaker 4 (17:45):
But in America, we have a little something called the
First Amendment. And let me tell you how it works.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
There's something called a talent ometer. It's a completely scientific
instrument that is kept on the President's desk and it
tells the president when a performer's tick talent Porsche, measured mostly.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
By nice to the President goes below a certain level,
at which point the FCC must be notified to threaten
the acquisition prospects for billion dollar mergers of network affiliates.
These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to the
even larger mega corporation that controls the flow of state
of proof content or the FCZ. He can just choose
to threaten those licenses directly.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's basic science.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Well, how about Jimmy Fallon over on the tonight show.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, a lot of people are worried that we won't
keep saying what we want to say, or that will
be censored. But I'm going to cover the President's trip
to the UK, just like I normally would. Here we go, Well, guys,
President Trump just wrapped up his three day trip to
the UK.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And he looked incredibly hands.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
That seems they didn't receive Trump's memo thanks for taking
some time to feed your mind with us today. The
quickie is produced by me Claire Murphy, with audio production
by lu Hill.
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