ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air last September for attacking conservatives after Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Seven months later, he's back – and he just told millions of Trump voters they're doing Christianity wrong.
Here's what he said on Michelle Obama's podcast, and why it tells you everything about who Jimmy Kimmel actually is.
The Man Who Got Suspended for Attacking You Now Lectures You on Faith
Kimmel sat down with Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson on The Light We Carry podcast and held nothing back.
He called Trump supporters "ignorant."
He told them to stop telling him what his job is.
And then he accused every MAGA voter in America of being a fraud Christian.
"The cardinal rule of MAGA is to never admit when you are wrong," Kimmel said. "First of all, it's the opposite of Christianity. I mean, it's the basis of the whole faith, is asking for forgiveness. And that seems to be cast aside."
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This is the same Jimmy Kimmel who, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated last September, went on air and accused conservatives of trying to pin Kirk's murder on anyone "other than one of them."
ABC pulled his show. Nexstar dropped him from 32 stations. Sinclair dropped him from 30 more markets.
He came back with a semi-apology. And now he's on Michelle Obama's podcast explaining why your faith is fraudulent.
What Happened When ABC Pulled the Plug
When Kimmel made those Kirk comments in September 2025, it wasn't a small controversy.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr called his remarks "truly sick" and threatened federal action against affiliates who kept airing the show.
Nexstar – which owns 32 ABC stations – pulled him immediately, saying his comments were "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse."
Sinclair pulled him from 30 markets and publicly demanded Kimmel apologize to the Kirk family and make a personal donation to Turning Point USA.
Disney suspended the show entirely.
Kimmel returned six days later saying it was "never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man."
That was seven months ago.
Now he's on a podcast telling you that the problem with Trump voters is they won't admit when they're wrong.
Greg Gutfeld Is Beating Him and He Knows It
Here's what Kimmel didn't bring up on The Light We Carry.
Gutfeld! averaged 3.49 million total viewers in March 2026 – a conservative comedian on cable, beating every late-night host in America.
Kimmel averaged 2.46 million in January 2026.
A Fox News show built on respecting the same people Kimmel is calling ignorant is beating him in his own genre.
The decade-long trend tells the deeper story. Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged 2.4 million viewers in 2015. By 2025, that number had slipped to just over 2 million – and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demo had collapsed 72 percent over that same period, from nearly 1 million viewers to 261,000.
The viewers who pay the bills walked away.
Kimmel responded by going further left, not less.
He Doesn't Think His Job Is Comedy Anymore
Kimmel told Obama and Robinson exactly what he believes his purpose is now.
"Don't tell me what my job is," he said. "My job is whatever I decide my job is, whatever my employer allows me to do."
He also invoked Johnny Carson as cover – claiming Carson "would be absolutely mortified" by Trump and would have done political commentary if he were alive today.
Carson's own words say otherwise.
"I think one of the dangers if you are a comedian, which basically I am, is that if you start to take yourself too seriously and start to comment on social issues, your sense of humor suffers somewhere," Carson told Barbara Walters in 1984.
Carson kept that philosophy for 30 years on The Tonight Show. He hosted seven presidents, skewered both parties equally, and went out of his way to keep the show from becoming a political platform.
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"You never knew Johnny's politics," Jay Leno said. "Johnny would come out and equally make fun of everybody."
Kimmel's philosophy is losing 72 percent of his paying audience.
Carson's worked for three decades.
The Pattern Nobody in Hollywood Will Say Out Loud
Kimmel's appearance on The Light We Carry wasn't about comedy.
It was a job application.
His show gets suspended. His ratings recover slightly from the controversy, then drift back down.
Gutfeld! beats him every week in total viewers.
His own genre, by his own admission, is on borrowed time.
Going on Michelle Obama's podcast and calling Trump voters bad Christians isn't brave.
It's Kimmel telling the only audience still clapping for him that he's still their guy.
The voters he just insulted figured that out years ago.
That's why they stopped watching.
Sources:
- Warner Todd Huston, "Jimmy Kimmel Rages at 'Ignorant' Trump Supporters, Smears Them as Bad Christians on Michelle Obama's Podcast," Breitbart, April 15, 2026.
- Joseph A. Wulfsohn, "ABC's 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' Hemorrhaged Viewers Over Past Decade, Lost 72% Among Key Demo," Fox News, September 18, 2025.
- LateNighter Staff, "March 2026 Late Night Ratings: Full Breakdown of Colbert, Kimmel, Gutfeld, and More," LateNighter.com, April 10, 2026.
- LateNighter Staff, "January 2026 Late Night Ratings," LateNighter.com, February 12, 2026.
- Fox News Staff, "2025 Lookback: ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Briefly Suspended by Disney After Charlie Kirk Remarks," Fox News, December 23, 2025.
- Brian Rudolph, "Johnny Carson: What Our Current Late-Night Hosts Can Learn From the King," Newsweek, April 5, 2024.
