Transcript of Jimmy Kimmel Benched & Socialists Bear Arms? | 9.19.25

Abc cuts off Jimmy Kimmel's mic, putting his show on indefinite hiatus after comments he made about Charlie Kirk's assassination.

The market is speaking. Conservatives watch TV, too, and they found that unacceptable.

We break down the fallout on both the left and the right.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, September 19th. This is Morning Wire.

A Daily Wire exclusive investigation is shining light on a radical group taking up arms under the banner of socialism and transgender activism.

Socialism is by nature about equality So that would be the only gun club I would join would be a socialist one.

And the Trump administration is smashing records for annual deportations. The last three months, we had zero. From millions of people a year ago, we had zero people enter country illegally.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Abc has suspended late Night Host Jimmy Kimmel, indefinitely for his talks about Charlie Kirk's assassination. But while many Conservatives say this is a just consequence for his statements, progressives are calling it suppression of free speech.

Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham is here now with the fallout. Hey, Megan. To start, remind our audience exactly what Kimmel said that got his show pulled, at least for now.

Yeah. So, Kimmel's comments came on Monday night, days after Charlie Kirk's assassination. And it was at that point that we already had a lot of information about what had motivated Kirk's killer. His political views, his left wing views were very well known by that point. And yet, Kimmel said this.

We had some new lows over the weekend with the Maggie Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.

And doing everything they can to score political points from it. So again, by that night, we had official reports from Utah Governor Spencer Cox and from the FBI in which they described Robinson, Kirk's killer, as deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology. And we knew by then that the killer had described Kirk's conservative views as, quote unquote, full of hate. We also know that he was in a relationship with his trans-identifying roommate. And Yet on Tuesday night, even after that backlash, Kimmel doubled down, painting the right as the threat and mocking the idea that anybody on the left is dangerous at all, despite the well-documented left-wing violence that we've seen in recent years. To be quite blunt here, Kimmel made false statements that he certainly should have known were false at the time that he made them, and that was immediately in the aftermath of Kirk's death. So you can understand why a lot of people were offended.

The information about the suspect was quite clearly presented by officials by Monday. And so on Wednesday, we see ABC take action.

Well, we saw them take action after some heavy pressure from the media companies that own these local affiliate ABCs that air Kimmel's show. So on Wednesday, Next Star Media Group, which carries 23 ABC affiliates, announced that they would be dropping Kimmel's show. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is another one of those major affiliate companies, announced that they were expecting an apology to the Kirk family, and they wanted to see ABC make a donation to Turning Point USA before they would agree to put Kimmel back on the air. Tonight, instead of Kimmel, their ABC affiliates, along with next stars, are going to be airing a tribute to Kirk rather than Kimmel's show. Now, behind the scenes, ABC did reportedly try to get that apology from Kimmel, but he refused, feeling that he had nothing to apologize for. And not only was he not going to apologize, he was reportedly planning to triple down and take even further aim at Donald Trump supporters during his monolog on Wednesday night. But rather than let that happen, ABC, which is, of course, owned by Disney, decided to bench him and avoid any further political fallout.

Got it. So what about the SEC? What role did it play? Because there's been a lot of accusations coming from celebrities, Ben Stiller, even Barack Obama, that this was a result of government coercion, not a voluntary choice by ABC.

Yeah. So as this was playing out, the SEC chair, Brenda Carr, pointed out that these broadcast networks rely on licenses from the federal government to operate, and that's different than print media or, say, cable networks. So he went on Fox and talked about that and how those rules require the broadcasters to avoid knowingly making false or defamatory statements.

With that license comes a unique obligation to operate in the public interest.

And over the years, the FCC FCC walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation. I don't think we're better off as a country for it.

But that said, there's no evidence that CAR or the SEC took any formal action against ABC or against Kimmel. And that does contrast with the Biden administration, which we know did take some formal actions against conservative media. Looking at the big picture, though, I'd say that Neckstar refusing to carry Kimmel and Sinclair also refusing to carry Kimmel is a much bigger factor here than anything Brenda Carr said. I'll tell you, John, I did hear one interesting comment from a friend of mine, and he actually said that he doesn't see either Colbert's cancelation or Kimmel's suspension as any major victory for the right Because quite simply, very few people watch these shows, and they're reportedly losing tens of millions of dollars. So in the big picture, whether Kimmel comes back, and it's rumored that he will, it's not going to affect the political landscape that much.

There's no doubt that his shows don't draw the audiences they once did. Megan, thank you so much for reporting.

Yeah, my pleasure.

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President Trump said on Wednesday that he's designating Antifa as a terrorist group. The Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers have faced increased assault after being doxed by Antifa, particularly in cities like Portland.

The Department of Justice under the Biden administration focused heavily on what it called right-wing domestic terrorism. And now the Trump administration is signaling that it will focus on radical left-wing groups. Daily Wire investigative reporter, Luke Rosiak, investigated one such group called the Socialist Rifle Association, and he joins us now. So, Luke, what did you find out about this group?

Hey, George. So the Socialist Rifle Association was founded in 2019, and within a year, it counted 10,000 Comrade. It operates through state-based chapters across the country and says it educates and trains leftists on the use of firearms to protect against fascists. The group was founded by two transgender men, one of whom goes by she/it. According to an internal survey, one-third of the members are anarchists, one-third are Marxist Leninists or Maoists, and one-third are LGBTQ. It gives out membership cards with Karl Marx's face on them. But perhaps more than anything, it is wrapped up with transgender politics. Four of its 13 national leaders go by they pronouns. Here's a clip from a documentary about the group's Maryland Chapter.

I'm a non-binary trans-fem commi-gun owner, and I like video games and martial arts.

The Trump presidency and seeing how Trump emboldened literal Nazis, literal fascists. Our government thrives on inequality, and it is a white patriarchal system. It is racist, but for the first time in decades, we had a President who was not afraid to speak out against some of our biggest social justice movements that were happening in America at the time, which really emboldened the bigots. It emboldened those that follow fascist ideologies and has kicked them into action. I believe a box has been opened that we're not going to be able to shut.

Now, has this group actually been linked to any terror incidents or near misses?

The Daily Wire review of federal court records found that membership in the Socialist Rifle Association is a common link among four high-profile incidents of political violence. A couple of months ago, if you remember, nearly a dozen people, many of them transgender, were charged with committing an armed assault against an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas. Benjamin Haneel Song, who was charged with shooting a police officer in the neck in that incident, was allegedly a Socialist Rifle Association member. Two separate instances of firebombing Tesla dealerships, one the day of President Trump's inauguration, were committed by Socialist Rifle Association members, according to prosecutors. Then there was a member who fought alongside foreign terrorist organizations and then said he would pay people to identify conservative participants in the January sixth Capitol protest, saying we will, handle this ourselves instead of going to police. He called for, stabbing Nazis.

Now, there has been some speculation that Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, was potentially involved in some trans-REDIT groups, and some of those groups had some very militant language. He was also dating a transgender person. Has he or his roommate/partner been associated with this group at all?

Well, the Socialist Rifle Association told me that Robinson is not a member. It declined to say whether his boyfriend, Lance Twiggs, was, citing confidentiality policies. But the group does have a chapter in Utah. On social media, that chapter offers, queer friendly firearms education. It asks members to support Arthur Gamboa, an antiracist accused of murder, and advertises a poster that says, I will die fighting for this cause. On Sunday, by the way, the Maryland chapter is holding an event for, Arab folks, whose poster shows people dressed like Osama bin Laden and Hamas terrorists shooting weapons.

Now, what do we know about the group's finances? Are they funded by anyone?

It's structured as a nonprofit incorporated in Kansas, but its federal tax exam status was revoked after it failed to file paperwork with the IRS for years. It's still been operating, so that's one avenue that perhaps the federal government will look at.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration takes a very close look at this group. Luke, thanks for reporting.

Thank you.

According to a new report by the Daily Wire, the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign is surging, with nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants already removed from the country.

Joining us now with the exclusive is Daily Wire's new immigration reporter, Jennie Tear. Jennie, great to have you on The Morning Show for the first time.

Thank you so much for having me.

So first, how close is the Trump administration to carrying out its goal of $1 million deportations a year.

Right. So they've said this lofty goal of one million deportations per year, which has never been done before. Right now, we're at 389,000 illegal immigrants deported so far under this administration. While that's not close yet to one million, It's still a huge advance compared to what we've seen under previous administrations. We actually are seeing this even exceed what was President Obama's years, which he was described as the deporter-in-chief. It's also exceeded President Biden's final year in office, and it shows that the Trump administration is going to continue to ramp up the effort. This is picking up the pace right now. With that, the Trump administration has hired 10,000 new immigration agents. That's their goal right now. And so that will definitely help reach their goal. But in a recent conversation with the acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, he told us that, if anything, the efforts by the Trump administration to encourage self-deportations, which they've done by incentivizing illegal immigrants to leave on their own, by paying for their commercial flights home and giving them $1,000 to leave, that we will reach that number, certainly. And they've already seen so far, according to DHS, 2 million of those.

Now, you've also just reported on this case in Chicago, where an illegal immigrant got shot after he hit a law enforcement officer. Can you tell us about that story?

Right. So this individual actually came into the US illegally. He was snuck in as what's known as a Godaway. So there was never any record of him coming into the country. Ice has enhanced their operations in Chicago. They saw this guy. He dragged an officer after hitting him with his vehicle, which right now is unfortunately common. A lot of these assaults are happening on ICE agents that are out there carrying out this mass deportation campaign. But not only did this guy come here illegally, he was previously shielded from deportation, according to our sources in ICE. He was shielded from deportation under the Biden administration, which did so even though he had a 2013 arrest for reckless driving and similar crimes within Chicago. The reason that he likely got away with this, according to our sources, is because of the sanctuary laws there that protect illegal immigrants from getting napped by ICE. And they're protecting essentially criminals in this case. We see this person got away with this. And then not only that, but the Biden administration said, You can stay here. You're allowed here. The Trump administration is obviously changing the tune of how ICE operates in this country and is trying to get them out.

Unfortunately, that case is a familiar story at this point. Can you tell us more about what these ICE agents are up against when it does come to this uptick in assault, as you've mentioned?

Right. So right now, there is a thousand % increase in assault on ICE agents. This is why it's important to understand the reason that these agents are out there wearing masks. They're protecting their identities because not only are people going out following them on their arrest operations, there's people who are coming up to them who are livestreaming the arrest, who are taking photos of their faces or trying to do so. And also even following them in their private lives. So this is putting not only those agents at risk, but it's also putting their families at risk who they go home to every day. And so they are up against big organizations left wing groups that are organizing, going out onto the streets like we saw in Los Angeles very recently over the summer. And they're very capable of doxing these agents, assaulting them, and of course, tampering their operations. Operations.

Meanwhile, we have some states or cities that are trying to outlaw any masking by these agents to protect their identity. It's pretty appalling. Jennie, thank you so much for reporting. Thank you.

Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.

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