Comedian John Oliver accused Disney CEO Bob Iger of capitulating to “Goodfellas”-style political pressure from the Trump administration after ABC suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, warning that “history will remember the cowards.”
Kimmel’s show was taken off the air last week after backlash to claiming that the “MAGA gang” was “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 comments were then highlighted by Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on a podcast Wednesday that he said was “telling companies what to do” and triggered a pile-on by affiliate conglomerates before ABC ousted Kimmel.
On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver said the chain of events leading to Kimmel’s indefinite suspension “could not be clearer”:
The sequence of events here could not be clearer, because it was all done in plain view. Carr leaned on broadcasters to take down Kimmel. They did that, sometimes even directly citing Carr while doing so, and then Carr celebrated with a fun GIF. That sure seems like a pretty clear case of the government pressuring companies to censor speech. And it’s not like Trump is even trying to hide it.
Oliver continued to note that large station owners Nexstar and Sinclair pulled the program amid Carr’s remarks, while Trump floated that other late-night shows could follow and that it was “worthwhile” to investigate The View.
Basically, Brendan Carr said jump, and Nexstar took his d*ck out of their mouth for just long enough to say, ‘How high exactly?’
The host likened Carr’s words to a mafia-style put-down:
We could do this the easy way or the hard way. As threats go, that is pretty clear. It’s like if someone threw a brick through your window with a message that said, shut up or else, then followed it up with more clarifying bricks saying, by or else we mean we will hurt you physically, then this is the mafia, by the way, followed by, you know, like in Goodfellas.
Turning Oliver’s ire to Disney’s chief executive, Oliver mocked Iger over the company’s silence: “History is also going to remember the cowards who definitely knew better but still let things happen, whether it was for money, convenience, or just comfort.”
He then challenged the CEO with a lesson he said they “don’t tend to teach” in business school:
Look, at some point you’re going to have to draw a line. So I’d argue, why not draw it right here? And when they come to you with stupid, ridiculous demands, picking fights that you know you could win in court instead of rolling over, why not stand up and use four key words they don’t tend to teach you in business school? Not, ‘OK, you’re the boss.’ Not, ‘Whatever you say goes.’ But instead, the only phrase that can genuinely make a weak bully go away. And that is, ‘F*ck you, make me.’
Watch above via HBO.
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