White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dragged former President Barack Obama into the Jimmy Kimmel scandal in an attempt to shield Donald Trump from accusations of censorship — but her defense quickly unraveled when Trump’s own past rant said otherwise.
In an interview on Fox News on Saturday, a gleeful Leavitt responded to a post on X by Obama about Kimmel on Kayleigh McEnany’s show “Saturday in America.”
“With all due respect to former President Obama, he has no idea what he’s talking about,” a grinning Leavitt proclaimed.
Obama called out the Trump administration for complaining about cancel culture then turnaround and take it to a “new and dangerous level.”
Leavitt denied the administration had anything to do with it.
“The decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel and to cancel his show came from executives at ABC that has now been reported, and I can assure you, it did not come from the White House, and there was no pressure given from the president of the United States,” Leavitt blatantly lied through her teeth while continuing to grin slyly.
Leavitt claims that since the news about Kimmel broke while Trump was still in the United Kingdom last week, it somehow meant President Trump had nothing to do with it.
“I actually brought this news to President Trump’s attention. He had no idea this was happening. It was a decision that was made by ABC because Jimmy Kimball chose to knowingly lie to his audience on his program about the death of a highly respected man when our country is in a state of mourning,” Leavitt claimed, again repeating false information.
Social media pounced on Leavitt for spewing more lies.
“That is a lie!! @FoxNews do you have a single set of balls between all of you?? Trump hates Kimmel. Trumps @FCC pressured @disney @ABC to suspend Kimmel,” began on strongly worded tweet.
Adding, “This neo fascist hag @PressSec needs to carry one of these in her designer purse,” Guitar Man Rick replied on X showing a picture of a book titled “The Constitution Of The United States and The Declaration of Independence.”
“With all due respect to Karoline Leavitt, she’s full of sh_t. FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a podcast ‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.’ Carr threatened their license,” X user Laurence (Larry) Boorstein responded.
“Does she know she is lying,” asked one user while another added, “Trump says otherwise.”
“Suuuure pink dress lady, dear leader never said out of his own mouth on AF1 that it should be illegal to “hit Trump” on the late night shows. All of us didn’t see and hear it with our own lying ears and eyes,” another added.
Despite Leavitt insisting Trump applied no pressure on ABC or the FCC, as users have stated, she neglected to mention Trump made a proclamation of the comedian’s outster months ago.
“The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented late-night sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, [Jimmy] Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely no talent, who were paid millions of dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be great television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”
ABC’s decision Wednesday to “indefinitely” suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” came after the late night TV comedian made comments about ring-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s death on his show on Sept. 15.
Kimmel’s monologue offended the MAGA sphere, including the head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr.
Carr suggested Kimmel should be fired and threatened ABC and Disney, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. Within hours ABC suspended Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.”
But the story took a dramatic turn Monday — ABC has ended Kimmel’s suspension and the show will return Tuesday, though Nexstar and Sinclair, major ABC affiliates, will still preempt the return in many markets.
Even Republican lawmakers were shocked enough to break with Trump and heavily criticize Carr.
Kentucky Republican Rand Paul said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Carr’s threats against ABC, Disney and local affiliates were “absolutely inappropriate.”
Rand said Carr had “no business weighing in on this.”
“The government’s got no business in it. And the FCC was wrong to weigh in. And I’ll fight any attempt by the government to get involved with speech,” Paul said.
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz also weighed in calling Carr’s threats to fine broadcasters or revoke their licenses dangerous.
“I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas’,” Cruz said, evoking the Martin Scorsese gangster movie.
“That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it’.”
