Good evening. My name is Lee Fong. I'm a journalist in San Francisco, and I'll be your host of System Update.

Glenn Greenwald is out of town.

The war on free speech escalated in the last 24 hours, with the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel

Live.

Disney, the parent company of ABC, decided to take Kimmel off the air, following an off-color

joke by the late-night comedian, insinuating that the assassin

who shot Charlie Kirk was a conservative and that Trump did not sincerely grieve the death of his

friend Charlie Kirk. But this suspension was not the result of a viewer backlash or normal

market forces. Brendan Carr, a previous guest of System Update, and now chair of the

FCC under President Trump, took offense at Kimmel's remarks and threatened the licenses of TV

stations that carry ABC. Within moments, the two largest owners of TV stations in America,

Sinclair Broadcasting and Next Star, said they would suspend carrying Kimmel's America, Sinclair Broadcasting and Next Star said they would suspend

carrying Kimmel's show. Sinclair went so far as calling for Kimmel to donate to Kirk's family

and to Kirk's political organization, Turning Points, USA. President Trump, posting on Truth Social

from England where he was visiting, celebrated the cancellation and called for a similar removal of Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert.

This is truly a turning point for the Trump administration.

On day one of his inauguration, Trump promised a new golden era of free speech and free expression.

He dispatched J.D. Vance to Europe to proclaim that defending free speech against government

coercion was a new pillar of American foreign policy. FCC chair Brendan Carr remarked that

satire is the oldest and most important form of free expression.

And now, and said he opposed censorship of comedy.

And Elon Musk, he proclaimed earlier this year that comedy is now legal under Trump.

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