Karoline Leavitt has denied that the White House pressured ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel in the wake of his comments about the murder of Charlie Kirk . Trump’s press secretary insisted that the move was a business decision, despite threats from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to pull ABC’s broadcast license. Leavitt, 28, made the claim on Fox News’ ‘Saturday in America’ after Kimmel said ‘the MAGA gang’ was trying to portray the suspect in Kirk’s assassination ‘as anything other than one of them’ on Monday.

ABC affiliates refused to air Kimmel’s show Wednesday over his comments, after which ABC and Disney made the decision to pull the show entirely. ‘The decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel and to cancel his show came from executives at ABC,’ Leavitt first told host Kayleigh McEnany. ‘And I can assure you, it did not come from the White House, and that there was no pressure given from the president of the United States.

‘And how do I know that, Kayleigh? Because I was with the president of the United State when this news broke in the United Kingdom,’ Leavitt went on. ‘And I actually brought this news to President Trump’s attention. ‘He had no idea this was happening. It was a decision that was made by ABC because Jimmy Kimmel chose to knowingly lie to his audience on his program about the death of a highly respected man when our country is in a state of mourning. ‘That was a decision that he made, and he is now facing a consequence for that decision and for that lie,’ Leavitt said.

Critics, however, continue to denounce Kimmel’s suspension as a form of censorship. On Friday, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner asked ‘Where has all the leadership gone?’ on X. On Thursday, former Late Show host David Letterman suggested the move could be traced back to, ‘an authoritarian, maybe a dictatorship’.

Leavitt’s denial in part came in response to an X post from former President Barack Obama accusing the administration of ‘cancel culture’. On Thursday, hundreds of Americans took part in a protest organized by the Writers Guild of America and the group Burbank Against ICE in Burbank, California, centered around the defense of free speech and fears or fascism. On Friday, a man was arrested in connection with a shooting that saw bullets fired through a lobby window at the ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California.

On Wednesday, before Kimmel was pulled, FCC boss Carr appeared on conservative podcaster Benny Johnson’s show to say he considering a federal investigation into the host and his network over his on-air comments. Specifically, Carr floated the idea of a suspension for the host as one of several prospective ‘remedies’ for the situation. The FCC boss also said: ‘It’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, “Listen, we are going to… we’re not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out.”‘

Within hours, more than a dozen stations across the US were telling both ABC and Disney it would not be airing Kimmel’s show. The fate of Kimmel’s show for now remains uncertain, as Disney’s decision to suspend the host ‘indefinitely’ has paved the way for talks between the host and his bosses designed to bring the show back to the air.

However, a meeting between Disney and Kimmel on Thursday aimed at finding a way forward reportedly ended without resolution. An insider told the Wall Street Journal that Disney is monitoring the situation and sees a path forward for a Kimmel return ‘in the next several days’.