Fox News Contributor Kat Timpf Pushes Back on Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension

Fox News contributor Kat Timpf made headlines on Gutfeld! when she stood up for Jimmy Kimmel, saying no one should want the government to “have this kind of power over speech.”

While discussing the talk show host’s suspension, Timpf criticized the FCC for apparently spurring ABC’s decision to take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air indefinitely following the comments he made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk‘s assassination.

Timpf clarified that she was “certainly no fan of Kimmel,” but she didn’t agree with the FCC chair’s public pressure or ABC’s decision to remove him from his late-night post due to his monologue. (The offending quote, it seems, came from his September 16 show when Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”)

“The FCC are actually not supposed to be engaging in the nuances of content moderation. Its scope is supposed to be very narrow,” Timpf stated to the panel. “I’m not a Democrat. I’m certainly no fan of Kimmel. I hated his comments yesterday… I thought that they represented a stunning lack of touch with reality. I do have a lot of personal reasons why maybe you think I’d be cheering this, but I’m not.”

Timpf went on to state, “Having the head of the FCC say on a podcast that this should be shut down, that’s an arm of the federal government saying that ‘we can do this the easy way or the hard way.'”

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“The bottom line for me is, you just shouldn’t want the government to have this kind of power over speech, even if it’s speech you absolutely hate because it could then use that power against you,” Timpf concluded.

Timpf posted her take on Instagram along with the caption: “I’m an independent, not a Democrat. Jimmy Kimmel’s sister also once told me to ‘f**k off and die’ over a mistake that was a misunderstanding, which I’d already felt awful about and apologized for. But this isn’t about politics or personal feelings; it’s about the FCC engaging in content moderation — and I’m still the same free speech absolutist as I’ve always been, for all the reasons I’ve spent my career espousing.”

Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended indefinitely by ABC on Wednesday, September 17, following his remarks about the alleged Kirk assassin. The decision has ignited a wider conversation about free speech, drawing reactions from Hollywood stars and media outlets.

Gutfeld!, weeknights, 10/9c, Fox