Trump’s Crazed New Rants Make Jimmy Kimmel Mess Look Even More Corrupt | The New Republic
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Trump’s Crazed New Rants Make Jimmy Kimmel Mess Look Even More Corrupt

As Trump’s ramblings reveal how corrupt his pressure on ABC to suspend Kimmel truly was, The Contrarian’s Jennifer Rubin explains what all this says about his consolidation of power—and how to fight it.

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This week, ABC suspended comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show under pressure from the Trump administration. The ostensible reason: Kimmel supposedly spread disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin. But then President Trump ranted to reporters on Air Force One about the ouster, and he basically confirmed that he’s sending a message to networks that they can’t criticize him too much. “They’re not allowed to do that,” Trump said. Actually, they are, and in this, Trump made the ouster look even more corrupt. Trump also declared straight out that broadcast licenses should be revoked from stations that give him too much “bad publicity or press,” rambled angrily about how many of the people he sees on TV are crazy or on drugs, and reiterated his threat to unleash the state on the leftist enemy within. All this confirmed that Trump is both increasingly unhinged and emboldened to carry out his autocratic takeover right out in the open. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian, who has a good new piece on Trump’s abuses. We discussed how Trump’s consolidation of power works, why many institutions are capitulating to it, and how Democrats can fight back. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.