Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert. We have news that's coming in, almost breaking, but more like,

to use the term, developing, because the Trump DOJ may be seeking an indictment of James Comey.

That's something we've heard a lot about. The president has demanded it. We have a legal expert coming up.

So that's a big developing story, even though we don't yet know what will happen there.

We begin with what Nicole and I were just discussing.

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel is back,

triumphantly returning to his show last night after staring down

a government effort to censor and silence him.

It's a Trump effort that first looked shockingly effective last week

when corporate giant Disney gave in to the Trump

FCC chair's blatantly unconstitutional demands, demands that all legal experts who've seriously

looked at this say would fail in court if they were tested in court. But they weren't,

because Disney first folded. Kimmel then stood strong, the censorship sparking a massive revolt that really did go beyond some of the many skirmishes we have in politics right now.

And it led to Disney's then unusual reversal of its own suspension to start this week. And so after so many people, literally millions of people had weighed in in some way on this effort to silence Kimmel,

I just want to remind you of something fairly basic, but that's part of the news.

We tell you things that you might already have a hunch about.

What we saw last night, Kimmel's return is the first time he has

addressed this roiling, ongoing censorship plot, the pressure on him and his team. So this monologue

crystallized a free speech win against powerful forces. I'm going to show you some of the key

points, because Kimmel mixed grace and appreciation with jokes you some of the key points because Kimmel mixed grace and appreciation

with jokes about some of the absurd facets of what he dubbed a still quite serious struggle

that's about a lot more than any single comedy show.

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