Late Night Hosts Team Up to Defend 'Canceled' Jimmy Kimmel in Censorship Row and Mock 'Our Great Father' Donald Trump in Extraordinary Rants
Jimmy Kimmel's Late Night rivals Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers used their shows to defend axed comedian.
Sept. 19 2025, Published 8:35 a.m. ET
Jimmy Kimmel's fellow Late Night hosts teamed up to support the "canceled" comedian while blasting the Trump administration's supposed "censorship" attacks.
RadarOnline.com can reveal Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon all referenced the controversy surrounding Kimmel in their opening monologues as the comics refused to shy away from the subject.
Fighting Talk
Colbert made a special episode of 'The Daily Show' to support Kimmel.
Stewart, 62, returned for an unscheduled appearance on The Daily Show and began Thursday night's episode by promising a "fun, hilarious administration-compliant' program," before directing barbs at Trump.
He continued: “Our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech.
"Now some naysayers may argue that this administration's speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy: a thin gruel of a ruse, a smoke screen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitarian intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional Republic governance.
"Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it's great"'
'Our Great Father'
She still lost to Donald Trump.
The Daily Show set was refashioned with decorative gold engravings, in a parody of gold accents Trump has added to the fireplace, doorway arches, walls and other areas of the Oval Office.
He took on a more stilted tone when he started describing Trump's visit to the United Kingdom, calling the president "our great father."
"Gaze upon him. With a gait even more majestic than that of the royal horses that prance before him," he said.
Stewart normally only appears on Monday nights, but made an exception to film another episode this week in the wake of Kimmel's axing.
Trump Jibes
Fallon branded Kimmel a 'decent, funny and loving guy'.
Fallon, 51, opened his Tonight Show monologue by admitting he has no idea what is going to happen moving forward.
He said: "To be honest with you all, I don't know what's going on. And no one does.
"But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he's a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back."
Fallon went on to deliver his monologue "just like I normally would," but with the punchlines of his jokes about Trump replaced by an announcer who made them inoffensive.
"President Trump just wrapped up his three day trip to the U.K., and he looked incredibly handsome," he began.
"His tie was exactly the right length and his face looked like a color that exists in nature, and his hair looked better than Conrad's from The Summer I Turned Pretty."
Colbert was axed a few weeks ago.
"Anyway, to sum it up, President Trump is making America great again by restoring our national reputation, reinvigorating our economy and rebuilding our military. I hereby nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize," he added.
"See, we can still say what we want."
Stephen Colbert, whose show has already been cancelled, took a vastly different approach, instead choosing to blast Trump in a defiant defense of Kimmel, whose show was canceled in wake of his comments about murdered MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.
"This is blatant censorship," Colbert, 61, said of Kimmel's axing at the taping for the show, which aired later Thursday night.
He then blasted Trump as an "autocrat" saying "you cannot give (him) an inch. Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100 percent.
"Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel."
Meyers accused the Trump regime of 'cracking down on free speech'.
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He also said that despite his own cancellation at CBS, the network which airs The Late Show with Stephen Colbert "wouldn't have done this.
"Now, regardless of what you think, what has already been done and how that looks, this is weak."
Seth Meyers, the host of NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, also waded into the Kimmel controversy on Thursday night, opting to take a similar approach to Stewart.
"His administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech," the comedian, 51, said to open his show.
"And completely unrelated, I just want to say, before we get started here, that I've always admired and respected Mr Trump,' he continued, provoking the audience to raucous laughter.
"I've always believed he was a visionary, innovator, a great president, an even better golfer. And if you've ever seen me saying anything negative about him, that's just AI."
The late-night host may be looking to terminate his contract with ABC following his suspension.
He then took a more serious note as he spoke about Kimmel's sudden ouster.
"It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it's a privilege and honor to do this show every night,' Meyers said.
"I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we're gonna keep doing our show the way we've always done it: with enthusiasm and integrity," he vowed.
