This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

As you've probably heard, ABC suspended comedian Jimmy Kimmel's show under pressure from the Trump administration.

The ostensible reason for this is that Kimmel supposedly spread disinformation about Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin.

But then President Trump offered his own comments on what happened, and somehow Trump made the whole thing look even more corrupt and even more like a flagrant abuse of power.

Trump confirmed openly that this whole thing is really all about how the

networks cover him. There's lots to discuss here, how Trump is increasingly emboldened to consolidate

authoritarian power right out in the open, why his willing accomplices are essential to his whole

project, and what Democrats can do to fight back.

So we're talking about all of it with Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of the Contrarian,

who has a new piece taking stock of Trump's effort to move us toward a police state.

Jen, good to have you on.

It's great to be here, Greg.

So ABC suspended Kimmel's show after Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission,

went on a right-wing podcast and essentially threatened retribution. He threatened to revoke the licenses of affiliates of ABC and urged ABC and Disney to take action on Kimmel.

This was supposedly because Kimmel had suggested Kirk's assassin was Maga,

which may not be right. Jen, even if Kimmel was wrong on that narrow fact, this is still speech.

Your reaction to what we just saw? Exactly. Fox News lies every day, deliberately, continually,

and no one takes them off the air. Unless they defame someone,

which Kimmel clearly didn't do, they are legally protected. Apparently Pam Bondi, as we heard

the other day, doesn't understand that, quote, hate speech is constitutionally protected.

We have a deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, who thinks that demonstrations and other

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