Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, September twenty fourth. Jimmy Kimball is back and I don't know how he could have nailed that any better. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Robes.
You like them, you don't like them, you love them, you hate them, you're indifferent. Yeah, you gotta kind of give him credit for what he put together last night, which, to some degree, Robes made him a national leader and a national voice in the midst of all this upheaval.
Absolutely, he is the voice of the freedom of speech, the one of the basic rights we have here in America that makes us America. I can't imagine the pressure that he must have felt to get it right, but man,
did he get it right. I was blown away at his ability to navigate all of the different emotions surrounding first of all, what he's said last week, and then what ABC decided to do, and how the Trump administration has literally declared war against him, and he managed to validate how the other side feels while at the same time not apologizing for the joke he made.
And again, everybody, you're up on this by now, you know he got suspended. If you will last week after he made comments that were deemed insensitive about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, under pressure from Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman, who went on a podcast and said, hey, maybe we need to be looking into Kimmel and whatnot. Well, they ended up suspending him. That was a threat. It seemed of taking away the broadcast license of ABC. So they, in a lot of people's view, caved to pressure took
him off the air, had negotiations, had talked. He comes back last night. Now. The monologue of the opening was a little longer than normally, actually had a commercial break in there as well. We'll tell you what happened after that commercial break. Robert de Niro was involved. It was hilarious, but he started out. I wasn't sure Robes what necessarily I was expecting, but I appreciated how he started it started. The show started by showing several video clips of news
outlets covering what happened and how serious it was. And it's about freedom of speech and fights going on in the country and politics, and Jimmy Kimmel is a very important monologue. Everybody's gonna be wanting all these news clips and then it cut to him and Guermo sitting in a chair. He's wearing a banana suit and Jimmy Gimmel's wearing a big bear costume. They look at each other that maybe we should.
Change it was a good start. We're not dressed for this kind of like also, like, we're just doing comedy here, folks, you know. And he even said something to that effect that the show is not important, but what it stands for. To be able to make fun of our leaders, to be able to have parody and satire and not fear any sort of retribution, that is what's important. So I mean, yes, in that sense, he was mocking the fact that this is a show about comedy.
Perious he was. I thought that was a nice tone, and I even wondered in that moment, Okay, maybe he's going to be a little sillier and funnier and make this lighter. And it actually wasn't. He did have a couple of lines at the beginning. I thought this was good ropes. He just opened with, as I was saying before I was interrupted, that's just well done.
It is well done.
He starts that way. The other line, it was very timely. He said, I'm not sure if who had a weird or twenty four hours me or the guy is the CEO of Todenhall.
Again, very timely, very funny, we talk very effective. That was amazing, but.
It wasn't it remarkable to hear he and he listed them by name late night comedians, current past, oh geez. He even mentioned Arsenio Hall. He said all of them have reached out to him.
And that was really cool to hear because they banned with him immediately. And he talked about the others who came to support him from the other side of the aisle. He talked about conservatives who reached out to him who don't necessarily agree with what he has to say or how he says it, but absolutely unequivocally support his right to say it period.
The that mentioned. I wonder how that's received. There are a lot of people who don't like his views and conservatives and fine, but I wonder how that landed for a conservative to say that, I thank you as well, because you were pissed about it as well. I just wonder if if it felt like a bridge of any kind between Jimmy Kimmel and any conservatives or not.
Well, I would hope it would, because to me, this isn't a Democrat or Republican ideology. To have the ability to speak freely, to be able to make fun up, to satire the president. That has been a long standing tradition and form of entertainment honestly in this country for as long as I can remember. So how would you be against that? And I also thought it was interesting he showed President Trump clips of him talking about how important the First Amendment was, how important the freedom of
speech is. So for any lawmaker who is a conservative or a Republican, that is the stand I would think you would want to be, or the side you would want to be on the side of free speech.
Oh, we heard it plenty on Sunday during Charlie Kirk's memorial. People outside, people inside, the freedom of speech. He was shot because of something somebody didn't like that. He said, this is the argument you're making on that side. It applies to both sides. Yes, that was speech that re bolted and that made some man go crazy and want to shoot you. But we're talking about this idea that you should not be persecuted, whether it's a bullet or
it's a broadcast license. You cannot be threatened like this because of what you say. And the President has made it plain as day. I don't like his jokes about so I'm going to take his broadcast license. He says that out loud. He's not necessarily trying to hide that fact.
And it's interesting because Kimmel even spoke to that point specifically talking about the SEC chairman. He's like the things he said, you would think would have been said in a van with a wire tap, with authorities trying to get you on tape, saying something you know you shouldn't, versus saying it publicly and proudly on a podcast that was that's kind of insane when you think about it. How can you have an administration who says, and I agree.
We watched it and we were shaking our heads during the Kirk Memorial to Charlie Kirk Memorial where they were touting free speech and the importance of it. We agree with that one hundred percent. And absolutely it is disgusting to see people take violent action, or to even take
action where you are costing folks their paychecks. Either way, yes, they're both egregious, and to say the one is bad and the other is okay, doesn't make any sense because we're still talking about the same thing, the right to speak freely.
And this is when But Jimmy, I think this was the crux. This was the line, I guess, the meat of what he was saying. He got to it just a couple of minutes in. It didn't take up too long to get to it, but the entire buntal it was almost half hour with the commercial break. But he said that it was important to me as a human. He's talking about what he was about to say. It was important for him to make this point. He said, it was never my intention to make a light of
the murder of a young man. At that point, Jimmy did he got choked up, and I think a lot of us have. I don't care who you are. I think at some point in the past two weeks, every single person watching covering or talking about that story is probably shed a tear. And I don't know how you could watch that memorial service and listen to Erica Kirk and listen to some other folks and not shed a tear or be upset or emotional about the death of Charlie.
And you could see it in that moment. This wasn't performative. It wasn't anything else but a guy who was struggling to keep speaking quite frankly in that moment. He continued. Then he said, I posted a message on Instagram the day he was killed and sent love to his family, asking for compassion, and meant it and I still do. It was never my intention to blame a specific group. Obviously, it was a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the
opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand to some that that felt either ill timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation were reversed, there's a good chance I would have felt the same way. That was that's better than an I'm sorry, I apologize if I upset you. That's a nonce.
That's no good and thank goodness, he didn't say.
That I apologize, even if he said I apologize for upsetting you. Instead, what he said, I get it. I would be upset to if I were in your shoes. That was meaningful, yes.
But it was important for him to explain that that wasn't his intention and It didn't feel like some hollow defense. It felt authentic, and it felt you could tell. I mean, I just think you can tell when it comes from the heart, and you could tell that he was deeply moved by the killing of Charlie Kirk and then by being blamed for something he didn't intend.
I think that's good way. But he didn't come across defensive. No, I need to come up here with excuses or explain. Well, let me. He didn't feel like that at all. I didn't think about that until this moment.
No, And it didn't feel like he was patronizing or he was being snarky in any of those moments. It really did feel genuine and that's why it landed. It really landed to listen to him.
He spoke as well, and I know there were good folks on both sides. He spoke about the close friends he has that are conservatives, but he went through this, he said, I get threats, My family gets threat staff gets threats, and he said, I know those don't come from people like the ones I know who are conservatives Republicans. He used that as a way of saying, I know it ain't all of you. And I thought that was
an interesting way and gave some insight. I mean, I don't really think about it necessarily, but it makes sense that he would get threats.
I hadn't considered that at all, but obviously now you can see where this happens. It seems to almost all politicians and certainly outspoken ones, but yes, comedians, anyone who shares a political belief. Now, at this point it feels like the climate we're in in this country, you are honestly or in some way putting your life on the line. It's a scary thing to get a threat like that, and to have real examples of people, certain individuals, carrying out those threats, or at least attempting to.
He continued spoke about I think we missed at the top, said he heard from yes comedians and thinks a lot. But he said he heard from a lot of comedians and late night comedians all over the world about this. It was my favorite line, at least of the night last night, when he talked about hearing from a comedian of someone in Germany who actually offered him a job. Can imagine that somebody in Germany robes looking over at us and saying, Wow, things have gotten really authoritarian over there.
Why don't you come to Germany? He made that joke. That is a poignant, historical and hilarious Jokey.
I agree, I agree.
I love that.
He talked about how comedians and other countries before this happened would reach out to him and say, man, if I said what you said, I would be behind bars, I would be jailed. And he said he took that for granted until now. And here's what I love what he said afterwards. It is un American to pull a show off the air because you've upset the president. He
doesn't like what you said. It is un American, and that is evident when you look at what happens to other comedians around the world, and so for us to start doing that same thing, that takes away who we are as a country.
He did. I mean, he made a good point about the plan backfiring. You want to do silence Jimmy Kimmel more people, we sweeart, we haven't. We love Jimmy, but we don't stay up and watch Jimmy.
Have we don't wake up and watch Jimmy.
No, we haven't watched the monologue of hisn't quite some time. We did watch this one, yes, And a lot of people did. And so he made the argument, yeah, your plan just backfire.
Now.
Some of his some of his best jokes and some of his hardest hits were directed at Brendan Carr, of course, the FCC chairman, who really set a lot of this in motion. Stay here, we'll tell you who. He had come in and do a cameo as the FCC chair that was absolutely hilarious and what I thought, there was another line that was the funniest. But there's another line we're going to share that I believe is possibly the hardest hitting line and the one we need to be
paying attention to most. We continue now here on this episode of Amy and TJ. Jimmy is back, and Jimmy is back in a big wage. Jimmy did his thing last night, Jimmy Kimmel in his monologue that went about almost a half hour. He split it into commercial breaks. But one of the he put a commercial break in between us, you'd say, but one of the things he did, he had a lot. He had a lot directed at
Brendan Carr, the FCC chair who set this off. And you're right, Brodie, you mentioned that line he had about like you don't say this stuff out loud, No, do this, And I think Ted Cruz is the one said this is mafioso stuff. It's like you you walk into a neighborhood bar and say, yo, be a shamed something happened to this place.
Yeah, you make it. You can make We can do this the easy way, we can do this the hard way. It's your choice. I mean literally, it was like a mob boss or a Snoop.
Dogg album, you remember that from Doggy Style. He said, we can handleist like some gentlemen, and we can get into some gangster shit that is a very mine from Snoop. That's what he sounded like. This is the yes, yes, take this out back. Oh you just want to what the hell?
We can do things New York style if you'd like.
So he went after Brendon Carry actually called what was the line? He called him, uh, this idiot genius? Okay, sorry sorry sorry.
Well yes, because it was a sarcastic genius. This genius said it on a podcast.
But he had someone come in so they had an appearance by the FCC chairman last night on the show. Jemmy said, hey, joining us now, and sure enough, it cuts and he's doing an interview with the new FCC chairman, who happens to be the guy Robes, who he might be the most famous television or movie mobster. He's just known for being this guy. I thought it was a good Joe.
It was amazing because at first you're like, wait, what are we watching here? But yes, Robert Gennaro says, I I am the new chairman of the FCC. Oh, and he just goes on dropping all sorts of expletives F bombs, and Jimmy Kimmel's like you can't say this, Like, yes I can. I'm the f ing FCC chairman.
He went on and on, and they bleeped and bleeped, and I thought that obviously, uh, the Niro is great at this, but the idea that the FCC having a new slogan was my favorite part of this. He said, here at the FCC, the Niro is saying this, here at the FCC, we have a new slogan is sticks and stones may break my bones. And then you just stopped. Jimmy's like, what's the rest of it? That's just it sticks and stones break bone.
I thought that I thought that words can ever hurt you. He's like, that's not happening anymore. And then he went in to give examples about what jokes would be acceptable and what jokes would not be acceptable, which I thought was very funny. He said, if you want to talk about how the president's hair, you know, is thick and beautiful, If you want to talk about how no one can do his makeup any better than him, yes, you free to do that.
He could do his makeup better than any broad.
Yes, okay, fine, I didn't want to say broad, but you're right, yes, he worse. And and then he said, but if you want to do a joke about how he's so fat that he needs two seats on an Epstein chet, well, then Kimmel said what would that cost me? And did he say a couple of fingers and he named some body parts, Yes he did.
But de Niro did his thing still robes the the moment, I guess that's a special moment when he did acknowledge Erica Kirk and that he had watched what she did on Sunday really a remarkable speech and eulogy to her husband, and he said that's an example we should all follow. But he I think he was I think you couldn't help but be stirred. But he talked about how that really affected him deeply hearing her.
Yes, he said that Erica Kirk is and showed herself to be an example that we can all follow. He said, if you believe in the teachings of Jesus like I do, then it was a selfless act of grace. And he said it touched me deeply. And when he said it touched me deeply, his voice cracked. He did begin to start to cry. So he said, if there's anything we can take away from this tragedy, I hope it's that, and that is we want. You know, you said yesterday you were hoping he would find some way to bring
some sort of unity, to bring us together. He can still have some fun, still have some laughs, he can still be upset about what happened to him and Trump's influence over ABC News, and yet at the same time, can we find some common ground? And he did it. He did it with Erica Kirk. He did it by sharing his his concern and his emotions surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk. That's something we can all feel together as humans. And he really brought it home with that.
I think. I think the bringing home he did for me with the line about the silver lining in all this is that we find something we can all agree on. And that's rare that we do that here in this country. Oftentimes tragedy brings us together. It seems like the Kirk tragedy tore us apart to a certain degree. But when there are moments of national tragedy, we come together, Democrats and Republicans. You see them on the steps of Capol
Hills saying kumba y'ah on those bs. But we found something in this country, freedom of speech we all agree on. And then he said, maybe we can find the next thing, And I think that is the way to go. There's some stuff. If you are pro abortion rights, you're probably never going to agree with somebody who is against abortion rights. Fine, what are the things though? YouTube do agree on? Freedom
of speech? Let's work make sure we protect that. Also, he mentioned just I think pediatric cancer right, pediatric cancer research.
Don't we all agree on that. I like the idea of him saying that we found something we agree on, let's keep doing that thing instead of keep fighting over things or finding things to argue about don't you if you put on social media right now a beautiful Wednesday morning, somebody's gonna respond it's not beautiful for some of us, or somebody's gonna respond it's not beautiful for these people who are struggling on that. Like people are always looking
for a way to argue. He made an argument for finding things we agree on and work for those, uh right.
And shouldn't that be the way forward? And you know, I do think he summed up though what happened here, and I do think he said it as plainly and as perfectly as he could, and I God, I would hope this would resonate with everyone as well. He said that our president has celebrated people losing their livelihoods and people on his staff. He's called for the firing of pretty much all late night comedians, he said, because he can't take a joke. And that is what this all
boils down to. This isn't about hate speech with what Kimmel said, this is about being able to laugh at yourself, and clearly we've seen the president has a difficult time doing that.
I think a lot of us might and that's okay, right, you gotta have thick skin. If you're in politics, and.
If you dish it out, you certainly should be able to take it.
Wee does I mean obviously go through the list of nicknames he has for people, God newscom I mean you should sleepy Joe, will you just keep going?
Or just his favorite loser whatever.
He calls folks. I thought and again before we came, before we took that commercial here, that was the most important line I think from last night because of perspective, and if you stop and think for a second, I don't want There are things there are there are There are coaches of favorite teams you might wish wasn't coaching your favorite team anymore. But I would never root for someone to lose their livelihood. I would never root for someone to lose a job. I would never be happy, happy,
and gleeful about that thing. When you he put it this way, there is someone who is celebrating, not me, But there are hundreds of people on these staffs you actually celebrate and joyful and promoting and pushing the idea that people are losing jobs.
And these aren't millionaires. These are staff writers, These are production assistants. These are folks who make you know the bare minimum.
So you hate Jimmy, that's fine. But to have someone gleefully celebrate what is a painful time, a hurtful time for people who are doing nothing other than their jobs. When he said that, that hit in a way that Wow, he's celebrating people losing their livelihoods, they got kids at home, they got mortgages.
Yeah, all because what he can't take a joke like a joke. I loved one of This is probably one of my favorite lines that he delivered. He said, let's stop letting these politicians tell us what they want, and let's tell them what we want. Isn't that what the United States is founded on. We elect the leaders because we are telling them what we want. It's not the other way around. And that is what we have seen happen.
Well, folks, looking forward to hearing what Jimmy has to say is a night. Still. We have to wait to see what Sinclair next our are going to do. They had made some demands Sinclair, at least, that he needed to apologize and make a significant contribution to the Kirk family or at least Kirk's foundations. Don't know if that's ever going to happen or if that still stands, we don't know, but Jimmy is back, and at least from our perch, he did it. He did what the country needed.
Last time, agreed, and we can't wait to hear what he has to say tonight. But in the meantime, thank you for listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.