JD Vance calls for Jimmy Kimmel apology following return from suspension

Vice President JD Vance said he would “love” Jimmy Kimmel to apologize to Erika Kirk and the people he “slandered” after the late-night host returned to the airwaves Tuesday after a brief suspension.

Kimmel’s show was pulled from the air after his comments on Charlie Kirk’s death drew backlash from conservatives and Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, who warned the agency could take regulatory action.

“He [Kimmel] tries to say that he told a joke. He didn’t tell a joke. He was actually accusing right-wing America, conservative America, of killing Charlie Kirk. We now know that is false. Charlie Kirk was murdered by a left-wing assassin who was radicalized by some of the rhetoric that we see coming from the far-Left,” Vance said Thursday during an interview on “The Ingraham Angle.”

“When you accuse the people who’ve been holding prayer vigils, who have been praying about Charlie Kirk, you accuse them of killing Charlie Kirk, when we know as a left-wing assassin, you’re actually apologizing for his murder, you’re encouraging more of that violence to happen.”

The vice president continued: “If we’re going to stop this crazy strain of left-wing violence, we have to be honest about what it is, and the honest truth is that Charlie Kirk was not killed by a MAGA American. He was not killed by a Republican. He was killed by a left-wing radical. Let’s be honest about that fact, so that we can stop it from happening.”

Kimmel’s Sept. 15 remarks criticized the Republican response to Kirk’s assassination, accusing the “MAGA gang” of trying to politicize it by portraying the shooter as “anything other than one of them” to score “political points.”

Kirk’s alleged assassin, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, surrendered to police and was charged with aggravated murder, two counts of obstruction of justice, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, among others. 

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A family member of Robinson told investigators that he had “become more political in recent years” and disliked Kirk’s views, according to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.

“Clearly there was a lot of gaming going on — friends that have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep,” Cox told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Kimmel’s first monologue since his return has drawn more than 21 million views on YouTube as of Thursday evening, and averaged 6.2 million viewers, according to The New York Times.

His show is still being preempted by Nexstar Media and Sinclair, which own ABC-affiliated television stations.