CNN’s Jake Tapper stood by Americans’ right to “mock” and “criticize” its leaders.
If that’s right is lost, it would “no longer the United States of America,” he said Thursday night while appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Mediaite reported.
Tapper’s words were in response to news ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely.
Tapper said the suspension was “direct violation of the First Amendment.”
Tapper spoke of Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr “telling companies what to do”
Colbert asked Tapper if agencies had been politicised before.
“Not to this degree,” Tapper answered. He added he had “never seen an FCC chairman call for a direct action by local affiliates to do something to remove a speaker and speech that they don’t like.”
“It’s chilling and it’s actually the exact opposite of, you know, [MAGA] were supposedly going to be the free-speech champions,” Tapper said.
He then recounted a time in January when President Donald Trump vowed to “immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.”
He then quoted Vice President JD Vance, who said, “Under Donald Trump’s leadership we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square.”
Colbert then observed that Tapper sounded “like a guy who doesn’t want a TV show anymore.”
“If we do not have the ability to criticize, mock, investigate our leaders, then we are no longer the United States of America,” Tapper responded.
During his Monday evening monologueto the audience, Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” had hit “new lows,” as he claimed that Republicans had attempted to characterize Kirk’s alleged assassin as “anything other than one of them,” IJR previously reported.
“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism. But on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.”
Kimmel then played a clip of President Donald Trump discussing how he was “holding up” after the murder of Kirk, whom he had been close to. As the audience laughed, Kimmel mocked Trump’s reaction, saying it resembled how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.
