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ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel's Show Indefinitely After FCC Threat; FCC Chair Says Broadcasters May Feel More Pressure in the Future; Trump and UK Prime Minister Hold Briefing on U.S.-UK Tech Deal. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 18, 2025 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:00]

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: But with the new displays, there's actually a tiny display screen that shows up in the lower right hand corner of the right lens that only the wearer of the glasses can see. So this lets you do all kinds of things that you normally do on your phone like reading and responding to text messages, taking and looking at photos, you can navigate on a map, you can do video calls, there's also live captioning and translation so you can see what the person you're speaking to is saying on the screen. And you can ask Meta AI questions and it will respond with a visual slate in addition to giving you an answer audibly.

Now, this comes with a wristband that lets you navigate the glasses, navigate that display with hand gestures like tapping or scrolling, so you don't necessarily have to talk out loud to the glasses if you don't want to if you're in public.

These glasses are $799 so a lot more expensive than regular glasses or previous versions of the Meta Ray Bans. But Meta is hoping that this is the next step towards a future where you can interact with AI and the rest of your online life without having to spend so much time looking down at your phone.

I did get to do a demo of the new Meta Ray Ban displays and it is interesting how quickly you get used to having that little display in the corner of your vision while still looking at and engaging with the world around you. And you can turn the display off if you're not using it.

Now, I do think it could be a bit weird if you're talking with someone who's wearing them and you don't know if they're looking at messages or photos while they're talking to you. So, this is going to be the sort of thing that people have to adjust to as they start using these glasses. Back to you.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, happening this morning, we are watching the fallout after the monumental decision from ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel's late night show off the air indefinitely. And this was so sudden. Staffers, they were shell-shocked by the network's decision. It was announced as they were preparing to tape the show. Audience members who'd been lined up to watch, they were just told to go home. Now, some of Kimmel's critics are applauding the decision after the comedian's remarks about the reaction to Charlie Kirk's murder.

This is what Kimmel said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMELL, COMEDIAN: We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA 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. In between the finger- pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Reminder, Kimmel is making a point there about the supposed right-wing finger-pointing at the left, not suggesting, as some have, not suggesting that Tyler Robinson, the accused, was MAGA. That was Monday. Yesterday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr criticized the network and suggested that his agency could revoke affiliate licenses.

Hours later, two broadcast groups announced that they would preempt or pull Kimmel's show from 62 markets, TV markets, or regions nationwide.

Joining us right now, CNN Washington bureau chief and political director David Chalian, CNN media analyst Sara Fischer, and CNN's Brian Stelter.

Brian, what are you learning this morning? Where are we?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Well, we are waiting to see if ABC is ever going to bring this show back. You know, they've replaced it overnight with Celebrity Family Feud, but Kimmel has not commented, and ABC has only issued seven words about the matter. Technically, ABC hasn't even said that the suspension is related to the Kirk comments, although it is clear what has happened here.

It is clear that political pressure from the Trump administration caused station owners to get scared and then caused ABC to pull the plug. Some of those station owners have business pending before the FCC. They need the Trump administration to approve their mergers and other deals, and so they were financially incentivized to yank Kimmel's show and to complain to ABC about it.

Within just a few minutes of one of those companies, Nexstar, announcing that it was going to yank Kimmel's show from its stations, ABC went ahead and pulled the show nationwide. So the domino effect was very swift yesterday, but ABC, owned by Disney, has not commented further, and Kimmel hasn't said a word about this. Notably, Kimmel's contract was coming due at the end of this year.

So is his show over? Was he ever going to come back? Does he want to come back?

Those are some of the unanswered questions this morning.

BERMAN: And David, the side of this that is truly new and novel is how the administration is acting, what they are saying, and to an extent, what allies of the president have been saying. I just want to remind people what the president himself said back in April. I'm old enough to remember, April 29th, 2005, when the president --

BOLDUAN: 2025.

BERMAN: Sorry, 2025. I'm really old enough to remember that. It was like a few months ago that President Trump said this.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:05:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I banned all government censorship and restored free speech in America. We have free speech. We didn't have free speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, that was the president, David, and so many supporters of him. Have talked about the evils of cancel culture.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: I mean, it has been a calling card of the right for years. And so, obviously, you can see that apparently you define free speech depending on how you assess that speech and from where you sit politically, because you can just see the camps forming around this.

You know, Brian laid out the business side of this between the Tegna and Nexstar deal that is going to be before the government here to decide. And clearly, so much of that is driving this. But I don't think we can also separate it from just like what you heard President Trump in his exchange with Jonathan Karl on the South Lawn of the White House from ABC News the other day, where he accused Jonathan Karl and ABC of hate speech and gloated about that $16 million settlement that he got out of the George Stephanopoulos incident.

And so I don't know how we can separate this from that. What is clear is we are in an era here where the Trump administration is feeling maximal strength in being able to design a broad media ecosphere to their liking.

BOLDUAN: Because there isn't much example of them being proven otherwise in this. I mean, Sara, talk more about the money here, because that is, as Dave is talking about, it is a huge part about this and something a lot of people were not paying attention to.

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: It's massive, Kate. So when it comes to local broadcast companies, for a long time, they've wanted to merge just so that they could compete.

BOLDUAN: Right.

FISCHER: You know, linear television is struggling and they have faced a lot of legal setbacks.

The Biden administration notably blocked a huge $4 billion plus merger between this company called Tegna and another affiliate company. And so now you have Nexstar, the biggest local broadcaster in the country that says, well, we want to buy Tegna. We want to merge with them. It's a $6 billion deal. They should face a lot of regulatory pressure, especially because the current laws would not allow a merger like that to go through unless there was very serious divestitures and conditions. And so I think Nexstar saw this as an opportunity to get ahead of any scrutiny by currying favor with the administration.

In a way, it reminds me of how CBS preemptively canceled Colbert to curry favor to get their deal approved. It's a very similar type of situation.

You also have to remember Disney. They just announced a few weeks ago that ESPN struck a massive deal with the NFL. You guys know this. Any deal that size, you need to get regulatory approvals for that. So both of these companies have serious business cases to pander to Trump.

And to David Chalian's point, the one through line of all this. It's very, very hard to pull political levers to hurt the media because when you want to pass a law, that is hard. You got to go through Congress. You got to get approval from moderates. What is much easier and much more effective is to wage these bullying and harassment campaigns that cause media companies a lot of opportunity costs, right? Time, morale, money.

And what you do then is you scare off anybody else, especially local and smaller outlets --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

FISCHER: -- who can't afford a big lawsuit. That's the playbook here.

BERMAN: And it is worth noting, look, as everyone will know, private companies, no free speech within a private company.

BOLDUAN: Sure.

BERMAN: Right. If you work at a corporation, they can fire you if you say things you don't like. What's different here -- and I'm just going to quote Brit Hume again, who works over at Fox News.

He says the First Amendment does not protect performers like Jimmy Kimmel from being canceled by their private sector employees. But I would have liked the outcome a lot better if the chairman of the FCC had not involved himself in it.

FISCHER: My take on this is like these are private companies who have consumers that want good programming. So if you're going to make a decision like this, you're doing it at the expense of your audience, which is how you ultimately have a business in the first place.

BERMAN: And there's just no question that Brendan Carr said what he said out loud yesterday. The timeline there has him speaking before the Disney decision was announced.

Brian, you've done a lot of work on sort of this entire environment and what it says.

STELTER: Yes, because this is something straight out of Viktor Orban's Hungary. This reeks of what's called Orban-ism, the idea of consolidating control over the media through autocratic carrots and sticks.

I just published a column about this on CNN.com. And I talked through the steps that Orban took about 15 years ago to take control of independent media and to muzzle critical voices. Now, Hungary is a very different country than the United States, a much smaller country. But the similarities are quite striking.

Orban was able to weaponize the levers of government for partisan purposes, pressure privately owned media companies to toe the party line and punish the owners who resisted.

[08:10:00]

That's exactly what President Trump is trying to do in the U.S. through a mixture of lawsuits and financial incentives, use of the regulatory structure and, as Sara said, public pressure campaigns. It is the exact same playbook. And we've actually heard New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger point this out as recently as earlier in the week. President Trump now suing The New York Times, a legally dubious defamation lawsuit. That's part of this picture as well.

The use of lawsuits and other pressure tactics to scare media companies into self-censorship.

But I think it's worth adding to this conversation that figures like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, as well as journalists who want to report on the administration, if they are pushed out of old-line, old- fashioned media companies, they're going to go to Substack. They're going to go to YouTube. They're going to launch their own companies. They're going to, for as long as they can, for as long as they have the free speech rights in America, find new ways to speak out and hear their voice and share their voices.

So I'm interested to see what figures like Kimmel do, if indeed his last show already aired on ABC.

BOLDUAN: And David, just in terms of how far the pendulum has swung and what that means for kind of where this goes from here, why this matters and should matter so much to people who don't care about a media merger, who don't --

BERMAN: Who go to sleep at nine o'clock.

BOLDUAN: Asking for a friend. Why this, this is a, this is a big, this is a statement about a bigger thing.

CHALIAN: Well, there's no doubt it is a statement about a bigger thing. It is this, everything Brian just walked through about what he observed happened in Hungary and making comparisons here. I mean, that should concern anyone of any political stripe, right?

Because it gets to some fundamental foundational principles about American democracy. I think you make such a good point, John, though. Obviously, private employers can do what they want.

Why this is such a concern, why we're talking about it is because of this concerted government effort from the president on down to impose this chilling effect. That is not the norm. And by the way, if you are on the right right now and you champion this because you believe in what Donald Trump is doing in this regard, just flip the script.

Because imagine when a Democrat is in office, if they were to pursue this same kind of strategy, imagine what you would experience and what would you feel if you felt that voices that you believe should be heard were being chilled and silenced through government action.

BOLDUAN: Important questions this morning, guys. Sara, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for being here. David and Brian, thank you guys both so much.

Still ahead for us this morning, President Trump is going to take questions alongside the British prime minister.

BERMAN: Maybe very soon.

BOLDUAN: Oh, there we are standing by. Thanks, JB. It wasn't looking down.

What to expect on this final day, these final moments of the president's second state visit overseas.

And the kissing bug disease is now endemic in the United States. We're going to explain how it spreads, how it's treated and what you need to know and how worried you should be.

And our exclusive bipartisan interview. I spoke with four U.S. senators who are now turning up the pressure on Putin to return Ukraine's children, the war's youngest victims.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These kids are more important than any political divides.

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[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: All right, you are looking at live pictures of the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and President Trump. They are at Chequers, which is the Prime Minister's country residence. And they are holding a business roundtable right now, a business tech roundtable right now to announce some deals.

We're watching this because, I have to say, a lot of times, these joint appearances by these two men devolve into a little bit of a rolling Q&A here.

While we're waiting to hear from the President, I'm going to go to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who's standing by not far from there on this trip. This is sort of the more business part of the trip after the ceremonies last night.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's been so much of the pomp and circumstance, John. Obviously, you know, there hasn't been a lot of real discussion when it comes to, you know, the matters at hand between these two leaders. It was something that King alluded to in his speech last night when he briefly mentioned Ukraine.

Obviously, that is a subject that we do expect to come up as Trump and Starmer are sitting down.

What you're watching right now, though, is this business roundtable, and you see the British prime minister speaking. Trump is going to speak in a few moments after this, and so we'll listen to see what he has to say then.

But investment has been a big focus that the White House has been trying to tout and that certainly Downing Street has been trying to tout as well when it comes to U.S. companies investing here in the U.K. and vice versa as well. That's why you saw so many of those U.S. business leaders seated at that table that only had about 160 guests last night, quite an intimate guest list for that state banquet that was happening at Windsor Castle.

But, John, you know, we haven't really heard the president take questions as he has been on this part of the trip. He's been spending so much time with the royal family in these royal processions. Now he's actually here at the meeting, which is the country estate here at Chequers of the prime minister, where they are going to be talking about business. One question is what's going to happen with trade.

Chequers is right behind me, the building where they are actually inside. The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, walked by us earlier. He had a prime spot at last night's dinner and there have been real questions about whether or not any trade agreements were going to be reached while the president was here in the U.K., specifically on aluminum and steel tariffs. So far, we haven't gotten any indication that there is going to be a breakthrough on that. Certainly not one that the U.K. was hoping for. And so we'll see if that changes.

And then, of course, Ukraine is a huge issue that we're waiting to hear from these two leaders on. [08:20:00]

As Trump issued that ultimatum in recent days, saying that NATO needs to stop buying any oil from Russia, importing any Russian oil, and also be prepared to put sanctions in conjunction with the United States on Russia before United States would move. That's another key issue that could come up.

And then, John, of course, I would be remiss not to mention Jeffrey Epstein. Given your hearing from Keir Starmer here, he's on this trip without his ambassador to the United States. That's a crucial position for any British prime minister, and he just had to fire his recently over his resurfaced ties to Jeffrey Epstein. So that has been another question that's been hanging over this visit as well as part of this has gone on.

But today is much more of the business side of this second state visit compared to all the pageantry that we saw playing out over the last 36 hours or so.

BOLDUAN: And Kaitlan, it's not -- it's going to start here, and then we're going to hear more of the president later. There's then the press conference coming up. When you mention Epstein, you have to imagine that that's some of the questions that are going to be coming up in a press conference.

COLLINS: Yes, that press conference will be a key moment to watch because that's slated to happen in about -- maybe less than two hours from now, about two hours from now after this business roundtable ends, where we'll hear from these two leaders standing side by side. Obviously, as certainly Keir Starmer is trying to present a united front with President Trump and has worked very hard to ingratiate himself and to be on good terms with the administration.

It really all started during his first visit to the Oval Office, Kate, you'll remember several months ago. That was when he came hand-bearing that invitation for President Trump to come and participate in this second state visit. And that was something, obviously, that the White House wanted to be able to tout as well. You heard Trump touting it in his remarks last night during the dinner after he went and spoke after the King gave his speech.

And so, really, one thing to keep in mind when you hear from the British prime minister later is that they're hoping that state visit lands so well with the U.S. president that it makes the coming to an agreement on trade, on defense, on security, on investment and private investment go a lot smoother and that they have a more willing cooperation from the United States on that front because the president had such a good time on the state visit.

That's part of why you saw it being one of the biggest military ceremonies that any visiting head of state has ever had here in the United Kingdom yesterday, as you saw President Trump touring the grounds with King Charles yesterday.

BERMAN: Let's listen for a bit to what President Trump has to say. DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, this is a very distinguished group, I can tell you. That's what I do for a living. It was before politics I would have to deal with you and you are the best.

You're the best in the world and you're here and it's an honor to have all of these great leaders. Really an honor.

I'm sincerely grateful to Prime Minister Starmer and Lady Starmer for welcoming us to this very special home, this beautiful place. And I was here a number of years ago, but somehow today it looks even better, even more beautiful and even more historic.

Melania and I are forever thankful to His Majesty King Charles III and Her Majesty Queen Camilla had a fantastic evening last night. But the exquisite honor of a second official state visit, the first ever.

It's the first time it's ever been done was really was an honor, such great history. And to think it's a first, it's always nice to have a first. But the ties between our countries are priceless and it's really an inheritance, a beautiful inheritance.

Today, we're making those ties closer than ever before. We've done some things that financially are great for both countries and we work together and it keeps us together. And I think it's an unbreakable bond we have, regardless of what we're doing today. I think it's unbreakable.

But this is very big. And I want to thank all of the incredibly talented business leaders, the best in the world, biggest in the world here this afternoon for investing in the Anglo American Alliance.

And you personify an important part of the unique national bond and really a world bond. What you've done is incredible. Our two countries do a great deal of business together, $340 billion last year was the number.

In May, the United Kingdom became the first country to make a trade deal with the United States during my second term. And we sort of wanted to make it the first because the bond is so strong and the relationship so long.

That agreement will create billions of dollars in opportunities for American farmers to sell their products into the U.K., reduce barriers to trade and give the U.S. manufacturers better access to the U.K.'s world class aerospace supply chain, which is really, really is world class. A lot of people don't understand the importance of that particular asset that you have. It's a beautiful -- it's a beautiful job you've done.

[08:25:00]

There's no more natural partnership in the world together. We're building up the industrial capacity of both of our countries, which is crucial to our defense. And we work so well together in defense. I met so many of the leaders of your defending group and many of them I've known by name. But now I know pretty well. We had some very good meetings today and yesterday.

So we're taking the next logical step with a historic agreement on science and technology partnerships. And this will create new government, academic and private sector cooperation in areas such as AI, which is taking over the world.

It's happening. I'm looking at you guys. You're taking over the world, Jensen, and I don't know what you're doing here. I hope you're right. All I can say is we both hope you're right. But it's pretty amazing.

Quantum computing, fusion, 6G and civil nuclear energy and align our nations through the approach of center deregulation and innovation. And we're going to have a lot of deregulation and a tremendous amount of innovation just happening. But this new accord is already helping spur a massive wave of private sector deals worth over $350 billion alone, headlined by a $136 from Blackstone.

That's very nice. Steve, thank you. That's why you have that location I think. It's considered the best seat of the year. Yours is pretty good, too, Jensen. That's good.

That's great, Steve. You know what you're doing better than anybody.

The American company X-energy and British company Centrica has been announcing and really for a long while they've been talking about this deal, the deployment of modular nuclear reactors across the U.K., all across the U.K.

It's been in the wind for a couple of years, and now we're getting it done, generating more than $50 billion in economic value, creating up to 2,500 jobs and powering 1.5 million homes. That's a lot of homes. Seven decades after British --

BERMAN: All right, you've been listening to President Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. They're at a business roundtable. We'll get back to this if they start taking questions, which is probable, I would say, in the next several minutes. So stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, we're getting the latest details about a deadly shootout that left three police officers dead and two more injured.

And the kissing bug disease --

BOLDUAN: Oh, really.

BERMAN: Yes, the kissing bug disease, now endemic in the United States. You're going to want to see this. You're going to want to see how you get it, too, because it involves some pretty gross bugs.

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