By Dawn Chmielewski and Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Jimmy Kimmel taped the first show of his return to late-night television on Tuesday after a nearly weeklong suspension over his on-air remarks about the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk that drew the ire of the Trump administration.
The comedian was expected to use the occasion to address the uproar last week that prompted threats of federal regulatory action, a boycott of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" by two major TV station groups and his brief exile from the ABC network's 11:30 p.m. lineup.
Before Kimmel's show aired, U.S. President Donald Trump wrote that he "can't believe" ABC gave Kimmel back his show, and hinted at further action.
"Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE," Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
"He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this."
While ABC parent Walt Disney announced on Monday that it was ready to restore Kimmel to the airwaves, station owners Nexstar Media and Sinclair have said they will continue to preempt Kimmel's time slot with other programming on their network affiliate stations, which reach about 23% of U.S. households.
Still, Disney's decision to cut short Kimmel's exile from late-night television marked a high-profile act of corporate defiance in the face of an escalating crackdown by U.S. President Donald Trump on his perceived media critics through litigation and regulatory threats.
The late-night entertainer and four-time Oscars host has kept a low profile since he was pulled from the air last Wednesday.
But he surfaced on the social media platform Bluesky hours before his return, posting a picture of him with the late television producer and progressive activist Norman Lear, with a message that said simply: "Missing this guy today."
Kimmel, 57, whose show has frequently lampooned Trump, sparked outrage from conservatives for saying that the president's supporters were desperate to characterize Kirk's alleged shooter "as anything other than one of them" and for trying to "score political points" from his murder.
The comments came in the opening monologue of Kimmel's broadcast on September 15, five days after Kirk, an influential Trump ally, author and radio-podcast host, was shot dead while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.
Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcasters, said on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson on September 17 that Kimmel's remarks were part of an effort to lie to the American public about the politics of the man accused of killing Kirk, and that he was looking at "remedies."
'EASY WAY OR THE HARD WAY'
He urged local broadcasters in ABC's network to quit airing Kimmel and warned stations that they otherwise could face fines or the loss of licenses.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said then.
A short time after Carr's remarks, Disney announced an immediate, indefinite halt to production of the Kimmel show, as Nexstar announced it would not carry the late-night program. Sinclair followed suit later that same day.
Trump, who has repeatedly pressured broadcasters and other media to squelch content that he has found objectionable, cheered the news of Kimmel's suspension after it was announced and referred to it erroneously as an outright cancellation of the show.
In comments to reporters last week aboard Air Force One, the president raised the prospect of revoking FCC licenses as punishment for what he regarded as unfair treatment of him by broadcasters, saying, "It will be up to Brendan Carr."
Carr's attack on Kimmel marked his latest effort to rein in media companies for perceived bias against the Trump administration and Republicans, stoking fears among free-speech advocates who saw the FCC chairman wielding the agency's regulatory authority as a cudgel and drawing criticism from many Democrats and some Republicans.
Influential podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump for the presidency, weighed in on the debate Tuesday, taking issue with the government's attempt to curb speech.
"I definitely don’t think that the government should be involved ever in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue," said Rogan, in a podcast released Tuesday.
On her way into the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood to watch Tuesday's taping with two friends visiting from Germany, Elias Fisher, 26, said he felt an extra element of anticipation given the furor surrounding the show.
"I'm just excited to see what's going to happen, to be honest," Fisher told Reuters. "I want to see ... his reaction and just what the opening monologue is going to be and how the whole show evolves."
Kimmel had planned to address the widening controversy on his show last Wednesday, but Disney executives feared the monologue would have further inflamed the situation - and suspended the show.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Kimmel had not commented publicly about his suspension.
In announcing the show's return, Disney said it found Kimmel's comments about Kirk the week before "were ill-timed and thus insensitive," but the entertainment giant stopped short of an outright apology.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry)
