Jimmy Kimmel announced a major change to his eponymous late night talk show, citing alleged threats from the President Donald Trump administration-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
On the Wednesday, September 9, episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the talk show host announced that an upcoming interview with James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Texas, will not air on ABC but via his show’s YouTube channel.
“I’ll be interviewing James Talarico tomorrow night under unusual circumstances,” Kimmel, 58, said during his monologue.
He explained, “You know, for the whole 20-plus years of our show, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like [David] Letterman did, [Jay] Leno did, Arsenio [Hall]. … I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.”
“I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015 and at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates,” Kimmel continued. “In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the [Republican presidential] nominee in 2016.”
“But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel alleged, “Now that he’s president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings, it would seem they don’t like.”
“And so out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas, who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television,” Kimmel noted. “It will be posted on YouTube instead. So if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you will have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel, where you will see it in its entirety.”
He added, “Thank goodness we have that because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do… until November, of course,” referring to the upcoming midterm elections.
Us has reached out to the FCC for comment.
Kimmel’s show was briefly suspended by Disney, which owns ABC, in September 2025 amid criticism from the political right and pressure from Trump’s administration — specifically FCC chairman Brendan Carr — after the comedian made comments about the killing of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk.
During his Tuesday, September 8, monologue, Kimmel took aim at Carr as he celebrated his show’s 4,000th episode.
“It’s a lot of shows. According to the White House, it’s too many shows,” Kimmel joked. “This show premiered after the Super Bowl in January 2003. There are those who said we would never last this long. There are even those who used the regulatory might of the FCC to unconstitutionally try to make sure we didn’t last this long. But we did it the hard way, Brendan, and we’re still here!”
