Hello and welcome back to another episode of the City Journal podcast.

My name is Rafael Mangual, and I will be your host for the next couple of episodes.

So excited today to be joined by my brilliant colleagues, we've got Ilya Shapiro, Charles Fane Lehman, and John Ketchum on the show today. It's going to be a great conversation. We've got lots to talk about, lots of news. Ralph, you're much better dressed than our normal host.

I try to be. You know, I got to keep up with John over there. Our resident dapper d'on is so stylish.

It really motivates me to step my own game up.

So I appreciate-uddy-duddy.

You mean buddy-duddy.

All right.

So let's get into the topics for today, guys.

All right.

So last week, ABC announced that it was going to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night TV host, former comedian who's not really all that funny.

But I think it's fair to say, you know, Kimmel told a bold-faced lie on the air with respect to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

He characterized the killer as a sort of right-wing, MAGA, you know, motivated conservative.

This, of course, is absolutely contrary to everything we know about this individual.

And so, you know, that was followed by Nextar Media Group, which is one of the largest TV operators in the country.

In fact, I think it is the largest TV operator in the country announcing that it was going to be preempting Jimmy Kimmel's show.

And then that was followed by ABC's announcement. So this chain of events on its own, I think, kind of sets a stage for, you know, a national debate about cancel culture, which is, of course, an issue that we've been talking about for a long time. But, you know, one that the American left doesn't have a ton of credibility on. For a long time, I think they've kind of been the party of cancel culture.

I'd love to hear what you guys think about that. But complicating matters further was that

President Trump's FCC chair, Brendan Carr, weighed in just before ABC made its announcement

and sort of hinted vaguely at potentially taking some kind of action in response to Jimmy Kimmel's

arguments. And that has kind of morphed what would have been a conversation about sort of corporate

cancel culture into a First Amendment debate, right? You know, this is state action. People are saying

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