Nearly a week after ABC pulled "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" off the air indefinitely, The View co-hosts finally broke their silence on the controversy during Monday's live broadcast.
"Did y'all really think we weren't going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?" Whoopi Goldberg began, drawing applause from the audience. "Have you watched this show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us."
Goldberg explained that she and her co-hosts initially decided to pause and wait for Kimmel to speak out before weighing in. "When the news broke last week, we took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first," she said, adding that Friday's episode had been pre-recorded, which delayed their response further.
ABC's decision to suspend the show came after Kimmel made pointed remarks about the reaction to far-right activist Charlie Kirk's assassination on September 10. During his monologue, Kimmel criticized what he described as the "MAGA gang's" attempts to politicize the killing. Hours later, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly condemned Kimmel's comments, suggesting that local broadcast affiliates pre-empt the show. Nexstar Media, a major owner of ABC affiliate stations, quickly announced it would stop airing the program "for the foreseeable future."
Goldberg strongly criticized the move, emphasizing the dangers of government interference. "You can not like a show and it can go off the air. Someone can say something they shouldn't and get taken off the air," she said. "But the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced."
Ana Navarro echoed Goldberg's concerns, sharing her perspective as someone who lived through both right-wing and left-wing dictatorships in Nicaragua. "This is what authoritarians do," Navarro said, warning that freedom of speech must be protected regardless of ideology. Alyssa Farrah Griffin added, "The First Amendment is the first for a reason, because you need to be able to hold those in power accountable."
As the discussion concluded, Goldberg reminded viewers that The View has always championed open dialogue. "We fight for everybody's right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free," she said, urging Americans to remain vigilant about their constitutional rights.