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‘Weak and Losing’: Trump’s Threat Against ABC Over Kimmel Return Slammed

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When Disney/ABC suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel last week, Trump supporters quickly rallied to the President’s defense, insisting that Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr had not threatened the media company and that President Donald Trump was uninvolved in either the FCC’s actions or Disney’s decision. His critics — and even some prominent supporters — disagreed.

The President last night strongly suggested in a social media post that the critics were correct.

Back in July, Trump suggested that several late-night hosts should, or would, be fired — among them, Kimmel.

“The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s show. “These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”

READ MORE: UN Suggests Trump’s Own Team Triggered Escalator and Teleprompter Problems: Report

The President’s supporters — some perhaps mindful of the First Amendment implications of a sitting president pressuring for a talk show’s cancellation and of the FCC chairman’s threats against Disney/ABC — have been insisting the suspension (or “cancellation”) was nothing more than a business decision driven by ratings and profits.

The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins wrote one week ago: “A lot of the people currently mocking government-censorship concerns about the Kimmel suspension seem genuinely to have missed that the FCC Chair straightforwardly threatened ABC over his monologue: ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’”

On Tuesday night, President Trump lashed out, appearing to threaten ABC with some form of action after it decided to end Kimmel’s suspension.

READ MORE: ‘Red Flag’: Stephen Miller Accused of ‘Reviving Fascist Rhetoric’ at Kirk Memorial

“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” Trump wrote on his social media website Tuesday night. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

Kimmel’s first show back, Tuesday night, reportedly drew massive viewership on YouTube, according to CNN, after the two largest ABC affiliate owners, Sinclair and Nexstar, refused to air the show.

Sarah Longwell, founder and publisher of The Bulwark, on Wednesday responded to Trump’s latest threat, writing: “It’s important to remember that anyone who argued that ABC wasn’t acting at the behest of government pressure is both a liar and a fool.”

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias also weighed in on the President’s comment: “A lot of right-wing people keep trying to explain that what’s going on with Trump and Kimmel isn’t the government trying to censor network television but Trump keeps clarifying that’s exactly what’s happening.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted the President’s threat on Wednesday:

“This is a test of democracy,” Leader Schumer told MSNBC. “That is what dictatorships do. That is what autocracies do. And Trump seems to have this penchant that anyone he doesn’t agree with, he wants to shut up. That’s a dagger to the heart of America.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sargent looked at Trump’s remarks from a different angle:

“Trump’s explosion of rage last night over ABC’s reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel shouldn’t be greeted with fear and weepy hand-wringing. It should be seen as a sign that his authoritarian designs are running into very deep resistance and that he’s weak and losing on many fronts.”

READ MORE: ‘Advancing a Divisive Feminist Agenda’: Pentagon Axes 74-Year Old Committee

 

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Trump Stumbles Over ‘God Bless America’ Lyrics at Veterans Day Ceremony

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November 11, 2025

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At Veterans Day events at Arlington National Cemetery, President Donald Trump, dressed in a long winter coat, with a scarf and gloves, put his hand over his heart as the band played, “God Bless America,” a patriotic song popularized during World War II, and sung by Kate Smith.

But as the assembled crowd sang the famous American tune, President Trump sang, “God bless America” — but stopped after those three words, seemingly unfamiliar with the lyrics or choosing not to sing the rest. His Vice President, JD Vance, next to him, sang the song.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Trump also declared, “Today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling [it] Victory Day for World War I,” The New York Post reported.

“I saw France was celebrating ‘victory day’, but we didn’t. And I saw France was celebrating another ‘victory day’ for World War II, and other countries were celebrating. They were all celebrated. We’re the one that won the wars,” Trump also said.

READ MORE: White House Says Inflation’s ‘Way Down’ — Americans Aren’t Buying It

This appears to not be the first time the President has had difficulty with “God Bless America.”

“Donald Trump, the president, either does not know or does not care about the lyrics to ‘God Bless America,'” Mashable reported in June 2018, during Trump’s first term.

That same day, The New York Times reported that Trump had stumbled through the lyrics of “God Bless America.”

“The president closed his ‘Celebration of America’ event with a rendition of the patriotic tune, but didn’t quite get all the words.”

READ MORE: Johnson Refuses to Commit to Key Part of Senate Shutdown Deal

 

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White House Says Inflation’s ‘Way Down’ — Americans Aren’t Buying It

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November 11, 2025

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Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, insists that despite five months of rising prices, inflation is actually “way down.” But polls and recent election results suggest voters see things differently.

Hassett on Tuesday told CNBC, “we’re comfortable that inflation has come way down — the 5% on average, for Joe Biden.”

“It’s probably a little less than half of that right now,” he continued. “And the trajectory is really, really, really good.”

Inflation for the month of December 2024, President Joe Biden’s last full month in office, was 2.9%. It increased to 3.0% in the month of January 2025.

Inflation for the month of September 2025, the last month for which there is Bureau of Labor Statistics data, was 3.0%.

READ MORE: White House Denies Post-Election Pivot as Trump Prepares New Affordability Push

Hassett went on to say that “inflation is one of those things that has a lot of momentum, if you look at the charts…”

“Even though it’s been increasing for five straight months as of September?” CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla asked.

“Well, I guess if you look at it from January, there’s ups and downs and seasonals, but yeah, it surprised on the downside, people were expecting it to accelerate it and it didn’t.”

Economist Justin Wolfers on Tuesday appeared to mock Hassett’s claims by posting a graph.

Voters one week ago took to the polls and delivered a resounding message to Republicans and President Donald Trump. Exit polls show that voters’ number one concern was the economy and affordability, as they decided to put Democrats into office.

READ MORE: Johnson Refuses to Commit to Key Part of Senate Shutdown Deal

And national polls show the same result: the high cost of living, the state of the economy, and affordability are all top of mind for voters, who give President Trump low marks in those areas.

One week ago on Monday, the day before the election, CNN reported, “61% of Americans think Trump has made the economy worse. Could that impact tomorrow’s elections?”

The New York Times shows President Trump’s current average approval rating is 42%, and disapproval rating is 55%.

In mid-October, CNBC reported that on the economy, Trump’s approval was “the lowest of any CNBC survey during either of Trump’s two terms.”

READ MORE: ‘The Whole Thing Is Imploding’: Chaos and Rebellion at America’s Top Right-Wing Think Tank

 

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White House Denies Post-Election Pivot as Trump Prepares New Affordability Push

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November 11, 2025

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In the days following last Tuesday’s sweeping Democratic victories, Trump administration officials fanned out across news outlets to highlight the administration’s focus on affordability, assuring Americans that prices have fallen under President Donald Trump. The president himself reiterated his claim—made many times before—that grocery prices are “way down.”

Critics say that overall, prices largely have not come down, and inflation remains around 3%—roughly the same level as when President Trump took office earlier this year.

Last Wednesday, Politico reported that a person close to the White House told the news outlet that “The President hasn’t talked about the cost of living in months.”

And White House deputy chief of staff James Blair told Politico, “You’ll see the president talk a lot about cost of living as we turn … into the new year.”

READ MORE: Johnson Refuses to Commit to Key Part of Senate Shutdown Deal

But now the White House is insisting the focus has been there all along, and denies any post-election ramp up.

“It’s not something where we called a meeting Wednesday morning after the election and said, ‘We have to get stuff on the board now,’” an unnamed White House source told Politico on Tuesday. “At both a systemic level and more targeted micro examples, we have been consistently focused on addressing affordability.”

Late last week, the Associated Press confirmed the President’s new messaging focus.

“President Donald Trump is adjusting his messaging strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting inflation,” the AP reported. “The messaging is centered around affordability, and the push comes after inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was their biggest concern.”

Politico on Tuesday also noted the increase in messaging.

“In the wake of last week’s bruising off-year elections that underscored just how vulnerable the GOP is heading into 2026, Trump has announced a bevy of policies that may ease the pressure on household budgets.”

READ MORE: ‘The Whole Thing Is Imploding’: Chaos and Rebellion at America’s Top Right-Wing Think Tank

Those include a claim he will send low- and middle-income Americans $2,000 tariff dividend checks, and a deal with pharmaceutical companies to sell popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs at reduced prices.

On Sunday, he also proposed sending Americans money for health savings accounts in what appeared to be an attack on Obamacare and insurance companies.

CNBC reported on Tuesday that economists say some of these ideas “are not likely to become policy anytime soon.”

As prices remain high at grocery store checkouts, President Trump, however, has been pushing back on Americans’ affordability focus, while insisting his job is already done.

Last week, Trump “bragged that the price of Walmart’s pre-assembled Thanksgiving Dinner has been reduced by 25% this year,” a Monday USA Today opinion piece by Chris Brennan noted. Also reduced were the number of items in the meal.

“I don’t want to hear about the affordability,” Trump said on November 6, Brennan noted, as he “defended his administration’s attempts to resist a judge’s order to make full federal food assistance program payments, known as SNAP, to 42 million Americans, during the federal government shutdown.”

One day later, “Trump insisted that the recent focus on ‘affordability’ was a ‘con job’ by Democrats.”

Trump repeated his “con job” claim Monday night on Fox News, along with some other incorrect claims, such as the price of gas.

READ MORE: ‘Impossible to Lose’: Trump Pitches Strategy to Cement One-Party Rule

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