Join Logan Sekulow as he engages in a lively discussion about the recent controversies swirling around Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and return to late-night television. With insights into potential PR stunts and the political motivations driving network decisions, this episode dives into the complexities of media bias and public perception. As familiar voices like Mike Pompeo and Rick Grinnell join the conversation, the episode takes a deeper look at political commentary’s impact on viewership and brand loyalty.
00:00:00 Jimmy Kimmel’s Return: PR Stunt or Reality?
As Jimmy Kimmel returns tonight to ABC, the big question, was it all just a big PR stunt?
SPEAKER 06 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
SPEAKER 05 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow. Will Haynes is joining me in studio. This is Logan Sekulow. Packed show today. Rick Rennell is going to be ending our show later on. And Mike Pompeo will be joining us in a few segments. You want to stay tuned for that. As phone lines are open for you, of course, we’re reporting again on the news of the Jimmy Kimmel situation. As Jimmy Kimmel will return to air yesterday. You may have remembered when I was… Or not yesterday. Tonight. Tonight. Yesterday, when I was on the show, I got ahead of myself on the show. People said, what do you think? Jimmy Kimmel canceled. I said, I think he’ll be on air by the end of the week. And I even said, I wish I had put money on it. And now I really do wish I had put money on it because Jimmy Kimmel has been reinstated. Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was never canceled. was suspended, production was suspended indefinitely. Now, when you put the word indefinitely on it, that is the spin problem, because that sounds like that could last forever. It’s like when a band goes on permanent hiatus or whatever you call it. It just feels like a version of not saying we’re broken up. Now, Jimmy Kimmel returns tonight, but sort of the big swerve is that both Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting, which again holds a massive amount of the affiliates, which is actually what you’re watching. When you’re watching ABC in your local market, you are not watching ABC. You’re watching ABC programming on an affiliate station. I know it can get a little confusing, a little hairy. Now, most of the time to have a deal with ABC or have a deal with these networks, they do have to carry the primetime main programming. However, late night has actually always been one of those things that has gone in and out. Jimmy Kimmel in certain markets is on at 11. Certain markets is on at 10.30. Certain markets on at 11.30. It would just depend. I remember growing up when we were in Orlando, he would always start 30 minutes after the other shows because the local news preempted Jimmy Kimmel. Now, that being said, though, Sinclair Broadcasting, Nexstar, that accounts for a large percentage of the affiliates, which means a lot of you watching right now are not still going to be able to get Jimmy Kimmel Live in your local market. And the reason I present the question of is it a PR stunt is that once again, no one was really talking about these shows until Stephen Colbert, they announced Stephen Colbert was going to go off the air next year. And ABC very likely could have been like, you know what? We need a little bit of that. We need a little bit of that love that’s coming in. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but maybe even the Jimmy Kimmel producers said that and said, you know, what’s going to happen here? What can we do to kind of get some people paying attention to the show we’re doing right now? You know, that’s the conversation that’s happening. Maybe they decided let’s push it over the line a little bit more. in the wake of the Charlie Kirk tragedy? What can we do to get people interested? Because you know what? I’ll be honest, and if you’re being honest with yourself, there’s a good chance you would at least watch that opening monologue tonight if it was available in your region, in your household. A lot of you won’t have it, but there’s a lot of you that would have. Ratings will spike tonight. It’s not unlike the Cracker Barrel situation, which I believe the Cracker Barrel situation, if I was a betting man on that, the entire thing was a publicity stunt. There was never a plan on it being turned into what it was. I’ve been saying that since the very beginning. The marketing department is always a step in front of the consumer. I think there’s at least cleanup happening now at ABC. They did have a lot of backlash within Hollywood, a real protest to the streets. So a lot of people said, this is what finally got you to protest. Not October 7th, not any of these things. What got you to protest was a show you likely didn’t watch was getting taken off the air temporarily.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right. And when you look at the reaction, how widespread it was in the entertainment industry about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air, the silencing of his free speech, one, all that was ridiculous. But also, if the Trump administration silenced Jimmy Kimmel, Are they responsible for bringing him back? I’m very confused about how this fascism that they allege works when he’s joining the lineup again tonight.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. He was off air for about a whole three shows, I believe. A Friday and a Monday show. What do you think? 1-800-684-3110. Again, we’re also joined by Mike Pompeo, Rick Grinnell, coming up in the next few segments. But phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I did also want to tell you to support the work of the ACLJ. In the last few weeks, it’s never been more important to protect free speech and protect our faith. You need to be part of the team right now. Go to ACLJ.org. We’ll talk more about that coming up. What about Teseculo? As I said, our phone line’s open right now. And I’m going to ask you, if you’re watching on YouTube, just throw in the comments where you’re watching from. I’d love to see that and kind of really see how much this could impact your local market and what’s going on. Obviously, this is a whole free speech discussion. This is a media discussion that goes beyond… uh you know abc it is funny to me to see the left going on rants to cancel disney plus after the far right did that for what i feel like was the last four or five years of saying cancel all of your disney boycott disney i realize i don’t think there’s much that disney can do for me to cancel my subscriptions or not go to disney world i realize whether it’s the far left or the far right i’m somewhere in the middle which is probably where everyone is going just entertain me put on a I’ll still enjoy it if it’s a good, well-produced production. I think Disney’s kind of flaw in this entire spot was they should have said, which, look, I have to give it to Fox. They always do this for Gutfeld, is whenever there is a big breaking news story or a national tragedy, something like that, they say, hey, we’re preempting the show tonight. We’re going to take a breather. We don’t want to inflame anything. And they do that in general because why that show is inherently political is on Fox News. Right. But so are these shows now. They didn’t used to be, but now they are inherently political. If you think you can tune in and watch, and I’m not talking about a joke about the president, that should always be on the table. That should be something that is happening. That’s pop culture. That is culture. But when you’re talking about political commentary, that is what those shows had become, whether it was Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, and to a lesser extent, but still Jimmy Fallon, where it felt like he was pressured into doing it. But Seth Meyers, who follows him, was exactly the same as the others. Seth is unwatchable because of how much it is just a political commentary show at 1230 at night.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, which is the last time you actually really want to be watching that. You should probably just go to sleep at that point. If you feel like Seth Meyers is something you need to watch. But I think this is interesting because, as you mentioned, Nextar and Sinclair, that’s about 25% of the TV viewership audience just between those two networks of affiliates. That is a big portion of the country. That’s a big portion of ad revenue. Obviously, Disney is going to see and ABC is going to see probably the biggest ratings they’ve had in a long time for his show. I would even expect… With that 25% chunk taken out, because I don’t know how many people in those markets were watching it in general. We know that the ratings were low. It wasn’t doing great. There was only about 220,000 in the demo that were watching. I feel like they can make that up in Los Angeles alone tonight with the solidarity watchers that are going to be doing it. And I do think, though, as it exploded into this whole discussion of free speech, We were critical of the comments that the FCC chairman said. I mean, we traditionally are more anti-FCC in general about government overreach.
SPEAKER 05 :
In terms of content. Right. I think a content moderation, the FCC at this point, is virtually worthless. I think it’s a waste of money, probably a waste of tens of millions of dollars. You’re looking for a place to cut. It is a good place to start looking. Now, do I think the FCC serves a good purpose? Yes, because there are things like air traffic control, the way that the sound and the way we connect on different things. There’s a lot of things in terms of communications that do need some government assistance and oversight because for our own safety. Right. I believe that that is 100 percent what I’m talking about. is a group of people listening to the radio and watching television and deciding what is good and what is bad, what is moral and what is immoral, because the line is so blurry. This is not the 1950s, this is not the 1960s. What they’re allowed to do on terrestrial television, over-the-air television, or whatever you wanna call it, the basic networks, is so far and beyond maybe why the FCC had this in the first place. I mean, remember you go back and in just our lifetime, not our lifetime, but our parents’ lifetime, you know, Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds, right? You know, I mean, that’s how extreme it was. And now a lot of that was regulation. Right. Was what was decent on the air. Now look at what you’ve been watching on ABC, CBS, NBC, these networks, whether that’s from their comedy sitcoms, whether that is from their dramas, whether that is from their comedy late night shows. If you look at all of that and you can tell me that it’s G rated, who are we talking, what are we talking about now? So you have a whole group that now, when the FCC started to say something like this, I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think the FCC at this point needs to stay out of content moderation. This is my opinion, by the way, not the organization’s opinion. We haven’t really done a deep dive organizationally, but this is just someone who is, I’ve always sighed on away from censorship. But I also don’t like the idea of the government getting involved. They’ve gotten involved a lot in religious broadcasting over the years. I was talking to one of my friends, you know his name, a longtime family in Christian television. He said, yeah, his family had to go talk to the FCC so much in the 80s. The amount of money they had to waste because they were just trying at that point to talk about Jesus on the air. That is what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s exactly why we pushed back against things like the fairness doctrine for so long as an organization is because the heavy hand of government wasn’t wielded even handedly. It was going after mostly religious broadcasters and trying to force religious broadcasters to showcase the other points of view about faith. On religious broadcasting. On their own networks.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
But this is an interesting question. This comes from YouTube that says, if Jimmy Kimmel had asked ACLJ to defend his free speech rights, what would the ACLJ do? And that’s where I think this becoming a whole free speech issue, I think it disproves the theory that this was the FCC putting pressure on Disney. The fact that he’s going back on air today. It was 100% a business decision for them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. If this was a decision that you could say you could draw a direct correlation to the government overreach and government doing this, sure, I think there could be something that could be said there. However, it was not that. I don’t think the FCC should have commented. but at the end of the day, it was a corporate decision by Disney. And now it’s going to be a corporate decision on how they’re going to distribute this broadcast. What are the rules and regulations? If it’s blacked out in your market, can they put it on Disney Plus? Can they put it on a free streaming service? I know that they were being put on there later on, you know, clips and things and full shows later on, but what about, you’d say the live airing. It’s not live, but the live airing. That’s going to open up another door, and is that what tries to get people to go? I know they’ve talked about that with shows like Saturday Night Live, where maybe they would move exclusively to a Peacock platform for NBC to drive numbers up for Peacock, and because they didn’t really want to have to deal with the censors and everything that was going into what was this late night comedy show that are made by the way in rapid speed. Most of them written the same day. So you got to imagine dealing with standards and practices is not easy. So if you can move it to your streamer, you better believe they will just in terms of, but you have to have the audience and that’s, that’s the big deal. But you know what I mean? I’ve watched recently, Peacock launched their version of a new spinoff of The Office. The paper. The paper. Enjoyed it. However, what was shocking to me, and this is maybe the prudish of me, is the language in it is of an R-rated movie. but you’re coming off of almost building a brand on a PG-13-ish vibe. What can be on TV. What can be on TV. So it feels like what could be on TV. Our brains are accustomed to this, like a sitcom having words that we’re not used to hearing. But that’s just me talking as a consumer, by the way, not as the government. You want to take a phone call?
SPEAKER 07 :
Let’s take a phone call. Yeah, let’s go to Ronald calling from South Carolina on line one. And if you want to be on air, call 1-800-684-3110. But Ronald, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I see that this, all the late night shows, and I think that Logan literally hit the nail on the head that it is literally just a way, a platform for the liberal left to use and to bolster their point of view, because there are very few shows, especially on national TV, where the conservatives actually have a platform to voice their opinions.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, Ronald, I think your other thing would be that Greg Gutfeld became the number one late night show in the country almost immediately after launch. Now, some of that is Fox News has a very dedicated audience of millions of people that watch every night. But he got in that discussion real quick, and he’s cable, and the rest of them are, again, traditional networks, ABC, NBC, Fox. But what you can obviously take from that is, is that that doesn’t really matter anymore. And it matters less and less as the days go on. So once again, as I said, if we were policing these things, if they were still being the FCC of the 50s and the 60s, which I don’t believe they should be, by the way, but if you were that, okay, you could say, all right, well, they highly police what goes over the air. But that hasn’t been the case. That hasn’t been the case since really the 80s, maybe even the 70s, where this has happened. So who are we trying to kid in terms of being prudish Americans? That doesn’t exist in modern media. There are great options for that, by the way. If you’re looking for clean entertainment, obviously I’m all about it. I’m all for it. Whether that’s Christian music, whether that’s Christian television, or there’s options like Great American Family, which really spun off the idea of you can no longer trust… a lot of the what felt like the family safe hallmark like you just mentioned even with the office spinoff like yeah you just wouldn’t expect it some of that’s building brand trust brand loyalty you know they’ve thrown all of that out the window and that’s why i start to lean on were we being played were we being played the whole time what do you think you think about the cracker barrel situation i think we were being played i love cracker barrel but you know what i think that entire thing You know, they’re pulling the signs down now. You see the videos of it. They’re putting all… Give me a break. Okay. 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be back with more on Sekulow. Join us. And we’re going to have also coming up Mike Pompeo next segment. welcome back to secular mike papay was joining us right now senior counsel for global affairs to set up what’s going on though president trump just spoke at the u.n general assembly this happens today of course uh after the launch of the jewish high holy days uh with rosh hashanah and the jewish new year happening uh as we speak right now uh started last night we had a celebration at our home uh and discussed you know the the history and the legacy of that of course this is under a time when when israel is under a pretty extreme attack of course president trump though uh this isn’t even the clip that we’re going to play but i saw a clip earlier he brought up the hostages brought up israel because you know what when other people can’t be there for their religious reasons at least president trump was there let’s go ahead though and hear from president trump to set up this conversation bye too
SPEAKER 01 :
What is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential. For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action.
SPEAKER 05 :
Secretary Pompeo, you’ve been involved in this kind of action for many, many years and been involved, of course, but President Trump directly calls out the UN for essentially doing nothing. stop any wars like he says writing letters making statements now we’ve always said it’s very important for the aclj team to be there and i do think where it’s important for us to be there because we have to be able even to fight back with words when necessary but isn’t this what the un is supposed to prevent aren’t they the ones that are supposed to be going out there saying we need to have calm we need to stop wars but it seems like their language always uh it fires it up
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, good afternoon. That’s exactly right. Look, the UN, I wouldn’t have said this 10 years ago, but now having personally experienced this and now watched it for the last four and a half years after I left office. you can see very clearly that the UN has become dysfunctional. It no longer serves its intended purpose. When war breaks out, does anybody think, let’s go to the United Nations and solve this? I think the answer to that’s no, and they turn instead to the United States for that kind of leadership. And so my judgment, the UN has become incapable of accomplishing its mission. The president said he still thinks it has high potential. I’m not confident that that’s actually true. I think we need to refresh and start over. After 75 years, I’m not sure the United Nations is any longer fit for purpose. It doesn’t help keep peace.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and Mr. Secretary, to that point as well, while he said it has tremendous potential, his olive branch that he almost reached out was more directly to individual nations. He said, I am here to offer the hand of American leadership and friendship to any nation in this assembly that is willing to join us in forging a safer, more prosperous world. So while he was… Saying that there’s tremendous potential with the UN, he was very, I feel like, direct in also saying, listen, we understand that we need to go directly to nations to be able to form these partnerships to make a safer world because the UN is not going to be the one that does this.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, that’s exactly right. He was offering an alternative vision for how we get to a more prosperous, more stable world, right, with a lot more peace and a lot less risk for American young men and women who serve in our armed forces. He was definitely at that, and I think he’s right. And you see that with all that’s going on in the world today, right? You see so many places where the UN simply can’t step in and solve it, but many of us working together, individual nations or coalitions of nations, can actually do that and achieve a good outcome for them and, most importantly, for the United States of America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Another thing that’s been happening around this UN General Assembly is we saw the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, they recognized a Palestinian state. And yesterday, France, at a two-state solution meeting with Saudi Arabia, also formally announced that they will be recognizing a Palestinian state. What was interesting to me is both the UK Prime Minister and his statement tried to say this isn’t a reward for Hamas. And President Macron yesterday also said that this is bad for Hamas, that they are recognizing this Palestinian state and that it will increase the odds of Israel being able to live in peace with their neighbors. Meanwhile, we saw Hamas senior members praising the recognition of Palestinian states, saying that anything that moves the legitimacy of the Palestinian people forward, they welcome. What’s your take on what the… members of the U.N. and very close allies of the U.S. are doing? And is it in any way make Israel safer or in reality, does it reward Hamas?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, goodness. You know, I kind of separate out the Gulf states and their views from these European knucklehead leaders. I use that term generously because that implies that there’s some sanity to what they’ve done. But the reality is what they’ve done is created an enormous amount of risk not only for Israel, but for the greater Middle East and for themselves and for the United States of America. There’s there’s no there is no Palestinian state today. I don’t know what it is they’re recognizing. It seems like pure fantasy to me. And, you know, I always ask I always ask when I hear people talk about we’re going to recognize who’s going to come to the meeting. Like, who would you want to sit with? You want to lead to the terrorist leader from Hamas? Are you going to go sit with Abu Mazen, who’s, you know, in the, you know, 20 years on or so from his four-year term in Judea and Samaria. There is no state today. What we ought to do is work towards developing a peaceful solution. It’s what President Trump’s been trying to strive for. And that is not going to happen so long as Hamas continues to have the capacity to engage in armed conflict. And as long as the Iranian regime continues to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and the other folks in the region who are committing these acts of terror against Israel.
SPEAKER 05 :
And that feels like a long road, Secretary Pompeo. I think when I heard Stammer going out there saying, you know, this is what our plan is. But our plan also says we cannot have Hamas in control. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters. And here’s why. Because we have to make sure we have a new government, a new leadership in place. We need to make sure they’re not being funded by all these other countries. To me, it’s like you make this big declarative statement. with no teeth because you know that though the hope is that we could get there one day but that right now none of that’s even on the table at this point
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, I think that’s right. And I must say, too, the timing of this is especially outrageous to me, not only during a Jewish holiday, but as we are now just a couple weeks out from the anniversary of the slaughter of Israeli citizens. By the way, Israelis, Islamic, Muslim Israelis, Jewish Israelis, Christian Israelis, and 48 hostages are still being held. It is pretty outrageous for them to go to the U.N. and claim they want peace, while the folks who are holding hostages have absolutely refused any terms that make any sense for anyone.
SPEAKER 05 :
Secretary Pompeo, we always appreciate you joining us. And look, I haven’t spent a lot of time today or this week talking a lot about the ACLJ and the specific work we do. But having your voice is always great to have someone who has been there, been in these rooms, been a part of the conversation. Of course, when we join later on by some more people who have done that as well, because we have a second half hour coming up on this broadcast. If you don’t get us on your local radio station, if you are listening on a terrestrial radio or listening on Sirius XM. Actually, SiriusXM carries the full hour, right? So just the terrestrial radio stations, some of them don’t carry the full hour. You can find us broadcasting live on ACLJ.org. However you get your podcasts, however you get your web series, your streaming series, you can find us on YouTube, on Rumble, Facebook. We are available on all those sort of platforms. Then later on, you can find us archived. But we’re live from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time. I always make sure that I tell people that. 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. And I encourage you, if you’re new, if you have never watched us on YouTube before, you never watched us on Rumble on YouTube, we have over 524,000 subscribers. I encourage you to join that group. Be a part of it. Hit that subscribe button. Be a part of the team here. It’s always a good way to start your journey here with the ACLJ. If you’ve been with us for a long time, I will encourage you, if you have a potential to make a donation, it’s a great time to do it. Just go to ACLJ.org. Any donation really counts right now. It helps us out, whether that is our media operations, whether that is the broadcast that you hear whether that is our legal work that we do each and every day we’re going to be talking about more about that coming up and if you need legal help by the way we’re always available for you at aclj.org help that’s at zero cost to you as the client that only exists because people donate to do that today back with the second half hour in less than a minute keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever this is seculo
SPEAKER 06 :
And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome back to Sekula. Will Haines joining me in studio. We have Rick Grinnell joining us a little bit later in the broadcast. And what that means, because he’s going to be joining us at the very end. I want to take phone calls in the meantime. So give me a call right now at 1-800-684-3110. Let’s go ahead and take some. Cambria is calling. Cambria is an ACLJ champion, which means they give on a monthly recurring basis, like a membership fee. And we really appreciate that. They do it not because they get something special. They get special treatment. Though here I usually bump them up to the front. They do it because they want to set it, forget it, and make sure that they are supporting the work of the ACLJ. But Cambria in Utah, go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. I just wanted to speak towards the Disney Plus and all of that topic. I canceled them, not because of Charlie Cook, not because of the shenanigans of ABC, because I believe it was I forgot the word you used, but it was a setup. But to make it clear, I was a Disney fan. I’m part of their legacy. My grandfather worked for them for over 40 years. And his name’s all over the place. However, that loyalty does not replace my moral compass. And because Disney is supporting all these other things, that’s why I canceled. And even if They came out with a God-fearing movie. I would not support it because it would line the pockets of those who hate God.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Cambria, I’m not cutting you off. I believe that that’s up to you as a consumer. If you decide that you do not want to support a certain company or certain organization. More power to you. That’s the beauty of capitalism, that you get to show off and say, you know what? With your pocketbook, you can say, or with your wallet, you can say what you want to support and what you don’t want to support. I’m not saying people need to do that or not. I tell you, I have not canceled my subscriptions. I have not done that. And not to say that I wouldn’t or I wouldn’t consider it. There are certain things that I don’t do anymore. I don’t eat Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Ben and Jerry’s lost me completely. What have they ever done, Logan? Ben and Jerry’s lost me completely with the way that they treated not just the plight of the Palestinians, which I understand can be a kind of a heart pull, even if you disagree with some of the things going on. they were treating Israeli citizens, Israeli businesses, tremendously bad. So with that, I had to say, okay, that’s enough. I’m not going to support this anymore. Now, when it comes to Disney, I think you have a publicly traded company that is beholden to its stockholders. If the stockholders make enough noise, responses can happen you actually have seen that they’ve actually changed over the last year or so two years or so where they have backed off a lot of the programs that they once held um you have seen bob eiger meeting with president trump you have seen bob eiger making some pretty big moves as they brought him back to try to bring disney at least back to a politically neutral company now that is way easier said than done uh when a lot of the damage had been done But what you actually saw this time was that the left was who was saying we’re canceling Disney. For why? For throwing Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Now, if they had just read a little further, they would have read, oh, this show is suspended right now. And I think Disney probably could have been clearer and said, that’s why I do believe there is part of this was PR. They could have said, we’re postponing the show for the rest of the week due to the current climate in the world. And we want to make sure that we are respectful of that. And we don’t want to put our foot in our mouth in any way possible because we know there’s a good chance that that will happen. If you have an open mic, and trust me, Will and I can attest to this, you have an open mic for an hour a day, you’re going to say something inevitably that’s going to make someone mad. You’re going to say something wrong. We’re never perfect. Specifically, we don’t have scripts in front of us, which a lot of us do not. This is all coming off of our brain in real time. But when it comes to the Jimmy Kimmel situation, it’s very different. Now, in the next segment, I want to hear from you. Carol and Debra, stay on hold. Phone lines are open. We’ve got four lines open. 1-800-684-3110. That is 1-800-684-3110. And I want to take as many calls as I can in the next segment, because in the last segment, we’re going to hear from our friend Rick Grinnell. Now, Rick has obviously been a member of our team for many years. He was at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, so we can even ask him about that as well. But we can also discuss President Trump at the U.N. General Assembly, as he’s been involved in that. And we can talk about his involvement. He’s a Hollywood guy. We can talk to Rick about that. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Secular. I’m going to take your phone calls in this segment because the next one we’re going to be joined by Rick Grinnell. So I want to make sure we get to as many voices as we can. Let’s go to Carol in Colorado, line one. You’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello. I’ve been one of your members for years. Thank you. And support you. What a blessing. I was just so thrilled that they were going to clean up America. That’s what we’ve been trying to do and pray for our country. And all they’re doing is just throwing garbage at us. and trash, and I was just disappointed And then if they can have a girl lay on a desk and start taking her clothes off.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m not sure exactly what we’re talking about on that one. And I’m not cutting you off because we’re on terrestrial radio. We actually do have rules. The FCC can’t go after us. So I’m not sure exactly what we’re talking about here. But Carol, what I will say is I know there was a lot of celebrating. And I think there’s a lot of people prematurely celebrating someone getting kicked off the air. You know, I’m not necessarily someone who has been kicked off the air before. I understand that it is the network’s decision if you don’t align with their policies. And Will brought up an interesting point, which was remember when they were going to bring him back on the air was just a few days ago. They were having ongoing discussions with him before they had had decided to suspend. Yeah, it was it was the day after he made those remarks. Remember, because his initial remarks were very good. very very unifying jimmy kimmel second day makes this statement about you know labeling essentially the shooter potentially as a as a maga guy that causes a lot of controversy disney brings him into the office and say all right let’s figure out how we’re going to handle this tonight and all reports lead to saying that jimmy kimmel was going to essentially double down and they said we need to let cooler heads chill and that’s precisely what disney did i think that’s the right decision And sure, did a lot of people maybe prematurely get excited thinking, oh, Jimmy Kimmel’s going to be off the air? Yeah, I think they did. I don’t praise anyone losing their job like that, but I do think there are some consequences to your actions. I look forward to seeing what he has to say tonight, along with America. I haven’t watched an episode, we talked about this, of Jimmy Kimmel Live. probably in 15 years. Right. It’s of the three that were airing, or still airing, he was my probably the least one that I would go to. Now, originally when he launched, I thought it was a very innovative, interesting show, just like Jimmy Fallon when he took over for Jay Leno. They made very interesting shows, but they all kind of, as they get older, fall into the same tropes, and his show became so fiercely political. I used to love it. Dickie Barrett was the MC, or was the, whatever you call it, the… Band leader? No, he wasn’t even the band leader. The host. He was the announcer. Yeah. He was the announcer. Dickie Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Boston. So, like, he connected with me many ways early on. Obviously, he came off The Man Show, which was highly popular on Comedy Central. Highly divisive, though. Highly divisive. I mean, at the time, it wasn’t as much because it was the 90s, and, you know, things were just a lot cooler. But then, now… He became so politically hot-headed. That’s the same with Stephen Colbert. I was a huge fan of David Letterman, not as a person, not as a guy, not his personal life. I know nothing about him, really, but as a host. Very funny, dry, could be mean, but was not necessarily mean in the terms of his audience. The politics were there. And then, of course, you have Leno, and then you have Carson, who were like… they were so even-handed politically that you didn’t even know who they would have voted for. You had no clue who either of them would have voted for because they were either even-handed or said nothing, which is probably where it should land.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and honestly, as people wanted to say, this is censorship. This is a free speech issue. And we’ve already talked about the comments made by the FCC chairman. But here’s the reality. Here’s what real censorship is. Here’s what real government overreach is and using the power of government to silence someone. Gerardo Boyle, who was an FBI whistleblower that we represented at the ACLJ, he got a real indefinite suspension. where he was suspended without pay for years. His security clearance was suspended, revoked. He couldn’t go get another job to support his family because he was still technically an employee of the FBI just without pay and on indefinite suspension. That is real government oppression of someone for what they say. Disney deciding after having a meeting with the guy and he was like, here’s what I’m going to say. And Bob Iger is like, I don’t think you should say that. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to decide when you can come back, but it’s not going to be this week. In three days, that’s hardly an indefinite suspension. That is hardly censorship. That is a business decision to try to get through something and see where they go from there. And I don’t think he’s going to be hat in hand, very humble tonight. I think he’s going to be the exact same thing he was last week. So no, this wasn’t censorship. This wasn’t a freedom of speech issue. This is someone on a broadcast network where the heads of that entire company, global company, decided, you know what? We’re going to pause for a minute. And then what they do? They bring him right back. And there’s also Walter Kern, who is very well-respected. Yeah, wrote him up in the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Has worked with Matt Taibbi a lot. But he put this out. And now I’ve looked around. I haven’t seen any sources confirming that this is the truth. But if he’s saying it, someone’s either telling it or this is him just being the cynic that he is. But he says California Newsom on Kimmel now after publicity stunt lead up. If that is the truth, then yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
So he’s also claiming it’s a publicity stunt.
SPEAKER 07 :
He’s claiming it’s a publicity stunt, but if it is something like Gavin Newsom,
SPEAKER 05 :
on the night that they’re going to have the most eyeballs if it is something like that then yeah the whole thing was a political stunt all right let’s take some phone calls a lot of you are calling in a lot about this and also a lot about the un and then you make sure we take both of those because like i said in the next segment we’re going to hear from rick grinnell let’s start um let’s start with deborah who’s actually asking about the un and then we’ll move back to jimmy kim we’ll kind of bounce back and forth deborah in pennsylvania go ahead
SPEAKER 12 :
Hi. I think when I called, I was a little bit confused between the UN and NATO, and they’re not interchangeable, but somewhat they are, that if everybody is supporting the Palestinian state, which has no land and it has no people, but we’re still supporting it, does that mean that the United States, it’s incumbent upon them to follow…
SPEAKER 07 :
um the palestinians into war no deborah so the difference with nato which has a military alliance uh the north atlantic treaty organization it has the the details in that treaty of how this group defends itself the united nations is a diplomatic body uh these people that are these nations that are recognizing a Palestinian state, they are essentially saying we will have diplomatic relationship with them. Many of them already had a mission from the Palestinian, from the Palestinian Authority. Now they’re going to upgrade it to embassy status, try to make it look more impressive than it is. But there is no obligation at all for the United States or even for the United Kingdom or France to actually do anything other than having diplomatic relations with a
SPEAKER 10 :
state that doesn’t really exist and doesn’t have a government so it that that’s all it means it’s more empty words on paper than anything now let’s bounce back to the jimmy kimmel conversation michael in florida watching on youtube line four go ahead gentlemen with regards to jimmy kimmel he still has the first amendment right to have a the freedom of speech the issue becomes the avenue by which that is supported and or aired with ABC or Disney channels. The subscribers of that who are the lesser, the channels locally that air it, also have a choice as to whether they want to air his viewpoints. So…
SPEAKER 05 :
you know, it’s not a freedom of speech issue. Yeah, I think, Michael, that has been a ridiculous overreach that this was a freedom of speech issue. Now, if the FCC is coming down on you and a network is having to make that decision based on that, I think an argument could be made. But if we’re talking about just an organization, if you have a boss, if you’ve decided to work for an organization that has a boss, guess what? The boss is going to make that decision. You are working for them. Now, what is weird is, and I’ll be honest, because this is going to be a little bit of a CLJ pitch, is we’re fully independent. I was listening to one of my friends who’s also fully independent. And he said, you know what? Sometimes it’s nice to have that boogeyman boss because you’ll rally behind those guys. But a lot of times you won’t rally behind us independent sources, us sources that have no one telling us what we can and can’t say, which is fantastic, by the way. Of course, YouTube could say that. They could de-platform us. Any of these can. We’ve had that hot conversation for many years. Thankfully, we have not. We’ve grown a massive audience there because they have at least turned the corner on free speech. But what was good for Jimmy Kimmel? What was good for Jimmy Kimmel was to have a bad guy. A lot of us out there, we are the only voice for the independent. And if you’re the voice of the independent, you need to support those people. You need to support the people that are out there making these decisions, not based. If you’re watching this on a network right now, they’re not paying us. I’m just telling you that. Quite the opposite.
SPEAKER 07 :
And this is just coming out from Jim Jordan. This is great. Due to the oversight efforts in Congress, Google has committed to offer all creators that were kicked off YouTube due to political speech violations to return to the platform. They also, YouTube has admitted the Biden administration’s censorship pressure was unacceptable and wrong. That was real government overreach. We actually defended… Charlie Kirk in Turning Point, USA, represented them on a brief to the United States Supreme Court about this very issue, the censorship of their platform under the Biden administration. So once again, if you want to talk about free speech issues and the government pressuring people, look to the last administration, not this one. And we’re going to keep fighting. But these are big wins.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we’ll keep that updated. Coming up next segment, Rick Grinnell is joining us. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulo. Rick Grinnell’s joining us right now. But I first wanted to kick us off by going to the phones. Let’s go to Cliff, who is an ACLJ champion. That is someone that gives on a monthly recurring basis. We always appreciate when they call in. Cliff, you’re probably going to be the last call of the day. Make it good. You’re in Illinois. But I know you had a comment. I think this is going to be a great segue into our segment here with Rick. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi, are you there? I am here. We’re here. All right, good. Listen, I’ll go real quick. Uh, I watched Trump’s feature at the UN. What a, what, what a show that was, huh? Um, That’s pretty dirty pool how they scheduled this thing to go against a nation that was attacked and they couldn’t even represent themselves. I think these things are scheduled. That was really a dirty thing to do.
SPEAKER 05 :
Cliff, of course, is referring to this happening, this UN General Assembly meeting happening during the Jewish New Year celebration during Rosh Hashanah. where Israel cannot really represent themselves. But thankfully, you do have President Trump out there, and he made some really strong statements in support of the hostages, going after Hamas, saying we need to get this done, where Hamas, he said, has repeatedly rejected reasonable efforts to make peace, and that they were being rewarded for horrible atrocities, including October 7th. And we have to get the hostages back. That was from President Trump earlier during this UN meeting. Now, Rick, you’ve been involved so many times on these kind of meetings and these kind of situations. I want to get your readout of just what went on today and what that could look like, hopefully for a future.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, look, we are all really used to President Trump being filled with common sense and speaking very plainly and transparently. And we see it every day, right? He goes to the Oval Office. Americans are watching this. We’re quite used to it. That room is not used to it. That room is filled with diplomats who are shocked that the president of the United States is just so much more filled with common sense, right? He is somebody who calls out countries, compliments countries, depending on what they need. He was criticizing the UN in a very normal way of, I just arrived here, the escalator’s not working, now the teleprompters are not working. And so he delivered that speech without teleprompters. I’m not sure other leaders could stand up there and do that. They might have to wait for the teleprompter guy to fix the problem. But President Trump just goes in, speaks from the heart, and really critiques the place that needs to be critiqued. For me, the headline was really Brazil. you know we’ve been having some issues between the us and brazil uh president lula spoke right before trump and president trump came out and said hey i just was in the back i saw president lula we we spoke we we actually liked each other for 30 seconds and we’ve agreed to see each other again now that is huge because previous president bolsonaro in brazil and president trump were very good friends And President Trump and President Lula have not gotten off on a very good footing. Now, I believe they are. They’ll meet. That means for us, you know, maybe solving the tariff issue, which we’re all feeling the crunch on coffee right now from Brazil.
SPEAKER 07 :
Rick, you mentioned the escalator issue and the teleprompter. I think maybe the conspiracy theorist in me thought that it was a little too convenient that the moment Melania reached her foot forward to step on it, it stopped. And then as soon as President Trump started to speak, The teleprompter went out, but maybe I’m reading into the way the U.N. feels about the president a little too much. But also he did bring up that, you know, he’s been wanting to help the U.N. refurbish the U.N. for a long time. We actually have a photo that you put on X of you, a younger Rick Grinnell and a younger President Trump talking about refurbishing the U.N. So great. He’s nothing if not consistent with his goals and plans and wanting to make progress. Come on, Will.
SPEAKER 09 :
I look almost identical, don’t I?
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s just that it’s blurred.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s just blurred because you’re in the background. It’s blurred. It’s like I have a filter over my face back then. I can promise you that we look exactly identical, the Rick from 2005 and the Rick 20 years later. But it was a fun day because that was… Sitting in front of Congress, sitting in front of the Senate, where President Trump was talking about how to make the U.N. better and how to refurbish it and why it could save money, the Senate didn’t take him up on his ideas, and neither did the U.N. I love that picture so much because that’s in 2005. And President Trump and I are sitting there. It’s future President Trump. It’s really just businessman Trump sitting there in front of the US Senate 20 years later. He’s speaking at the UN saying, you didn’t take me up on my ideas 20 years ago. We could have had this place fixed. uh i love the moment uh i’ve joked with the president about it i’ve shown that picture to president trump multiple times just to remind him of uh what we did together early in uh in our relationship between you know the un and and back then i was working with him because he had such great ideas on how to fix up the place at the un and i was working at the un for eight years and so um we’ve stayed friends ever since then
SPEAKER 05 :
And now you’re doing it for the Kennedy Center. Now you’re bringing all of that refurb to it. I see all the new designs coming at it.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, that’s such a good point, Logan. I need to bring that up to the president to say, you know, we had all these big ideas for the UN. They didn’t take us up on it. But now look what we’re doing at the Kennedy Center. I think he’ll like that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, absolutely. Now, obviously, one of the other big stories and look, you’re a California guy, a Hollywood guy. We saw the protests going on in the streets. Of course, what is Hollywood going to protest? They’re going to protest. a late night talk show getting thrown off the air temporarily. That is what’s going to get them to the streets. Is it the hostages? Is it any of the issues that we really hold dear in this country? No. Is it even the fires that happened in California? No. Of course, what’s going to get Hollywood really engaged is going to be that a beloved late night talk show that very few people were watching by five uh you know gets temporarily thrown off the air and of course we’re seeing it was reinstated tonight though a lot of the affiliates will not be carrying it just want to get your thoughts on this kind of feels a bit like a PR move a PR stunt uh but also uh it shows you what happens actually when Hollywood gets uh motivated but sadly this is what gets them uh motivated
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, if you follow the liberal logic, that just means that Donald Trump rehired Jimmy Kimmel. Right. That’s all that that means. He had the control. They said that Donald Trump kicked him off. But look, the reality is, is he’s still losing money. And ABC made the decision because he’s losing millions of dollars every single year. But it makes sense to me. If you have a business, if you have a show and you’re only appealing to one side of the country, 50 percent of the country is you’re not even catering to because Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t have conservative guests. He always mocks conservatives. He’s a mouthpiece for the left. Of course, you’re going to lose money when you’re only trying to cater to half the country. And so Disney needs to understand that losing money is the new woke policy if for some reason you’re pressured into keeping these losers.
SPEAKER 05 :
because they keep losing money but you you don’t have the guts to fire people simply because you can’t make decisions about your bottom line i think shareholders at disney should be outraged yeah and i think they will be and i think you’re going to see in a year’s time we’ll see what happens i do think this is an attempt to pop a rating tonight i’m sure it will be a lot of us are interested in what he has to say is he going to come out with a hat in hand apology i doubt it well you know you’ll never know we’ll see where what disney’s pressure can actually uh do Who knows? I mean, look, other than that show, Disney has tried to backpedal and to fix a lot of the problems. You look at even like a Dancing with the Stars. They have always appealed now to finding guests that were Christian conservatives as well as a completely opposite side. They have tried to appeal to really just the masses. There’s just these coupled pockets that they can’t seem to get their heads wrapped around that even the liberal audience a lot of times doesn’t want to see at 1130 at night. They just want to relax. They just want to shut down for the evening. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Look, we’ve got to wrap up. We’ve only got 10 seconds left. Rick, thank you so much for joining us. That’s going to do it for today’s show. We’ll be back tomorrow. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org.
Kimmel Returns: Was it a PR Stunt?
Join Logan Sekulow as he engages in a lively discussion about the recent controversies swirling around Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension and return to late-night television. With insights into potential PR stunts and the political motivations driving network decisions, this episode dives into the complexities of media bias and public perception. As familiar voices like Mike Pompeo and Rick Grinnell join the conversation, the episode takes a deeper look at political commentary’s impact on viewership and brand loyalty.
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