US senator slams 'mafioso' decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel for Charlie Kirk comments

A US Senator has hit back at the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show after his comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder.

This comes after long-time talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air 'indefinitely' after comments he made about the Charlie Kirk shooting and also about Donald Trump.

The 57-year-old was doing his usual opening monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! when he began to get into the recent politics.

That’s when he brought up the recent assassination of the political activist and joked about Trump's reaction to his death.

Kirk was fatally shot in the neck during a debate at Utah Valley University on 10 September.

However, Kimmel suggested that the 'MAGA gang' was using his assassination to 'score political points'.

ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel after his Charlie Kirk remarks (ZZHollywood To You/Star Max / Contributor / Getty)

Kimmel went on to share the clip of Trump being asked about how he was doing after Kirk's shooting, which showed the 79-year-old telling the reporter he was ‘very good’ before mentioning the constructions going on in the White House ballroom.

The host quipped: "Yes, he's at the fourth stage of grief: Construction."

He went on to say, 'this is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish'.

Kimmel also suggested Tyler Robinson, the suspected shooter, was a MAGA Republican, despite his mother saying he was starting to align with leftist views.

Kimmel’s show was then taken off air for his comments, and many criticised the move as being censorship.

While Trump celebrated the move to remove him from TV, American Senator Ted Cruz has hit out at Kimmel's suspension, saying it was ‘mafioso’ behaviour to remove him.

ABC pulled the show after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatened Disney (which owns ABC) and local broadcasters with investigations and regulatory action if they dared to air Kimmel’s show.

To this, Cruz called it ‘dangerous as hell’.

"I got to say that's right out of 'Goodfellas,'" he said, as per Sky News. "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.'"

Ted Cruz has hit back at Kimmel's suspension (Chip Somodevilla / Staff /Getty)

The senator, then took on a mafioso accent and quoted a generic mafia saying you’ve probably heard on TV: "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way."

Trump has since responded at the Oval Office while he spoke to reporters on Friday 19 September, saying Carr is ‘an incredible American patriot with courage.’

But Cruz isn’t the only political figure to lash out at the suspension.

Former US president Barack Obama wrote on X: "After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn't like.

"This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent, and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating it."

When Trump heard of the news that Kimmel was cancelled, he took to Truth Social at 1am to air his celebrations.

He wrote: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT."