Turning Point didn’t want Jimmy Kimmel canceled because ABC’s ‘liar’ doesn’t deserve to be a martyr

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) spokesman Andrew Kolvet said he’s “relieved” Jimmy Kimmel is back on air — not because he agrees with the ABC host’s controversial comments, but because he believes cancellation would have made the liberal comic a martyr.

Kimmel was famously sidelined by Disney last month after he falsely suggested that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination, was part of the “MAGA gang.” The remarks drew intense backlash from conservatives, along with a veiled threat from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but Kimmel’s benching didn’t even last a week and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was able to return to air without the host offering an apology. 

“I don’t want Jimmy Kimmel to be a martyr. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s a liar, he’s an unrepentant liar, but he should not be considered a martyr by anybody,” Kolvet told Fox News Digital. 

Kolvet said some of the messaging from the FCC was “well-intentioned,” but “muddied the water” and allowed liberals to rally around Kimmel in the name of free speech.  

Kimmel’s brief benching caused outrage from the left, and hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Disney’s location in Burbank, California, to demand that Disney put “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” back on the air. Protesters also gathered outside Kimmel’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard, where they were recorded chanting, “ABC bent the knee! No to the FCC!”

“What I hope happens is that this has so tarnished his legacy, and his trust that’s held by the audience, that this is going to work itself out over time,” Kolvet said. 

“It’s important that when people lie, and they lie in that type of setting and that platform about such a huge event, that there are real consequences. And I think the best consequence would be that people just tune out,” he added. “People refuse to watch a liar on TV and that when the ratings come up and the P&L statement, ABC reviews it, that they just say, ‘Hey, this isn’t worth continuing.’”

Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group initially preempted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on the ABC affiliates they own throughout the country, but the broadcast TV juggernauts quietly announced the program would return last Friday. 

Kolvet, who was one of Kirk’s closest friends and business partners, feels that Disney, Nexstar and Sinclair all putting Kimmel back on air without a sincere apology is a “pyrrhic victory,” and the liberal funnyman will ultimately lose. 

“When that happens, I don’t think that he’s gonna be able to blame us for it. I think he’s just gonna have to blame himself and his own choices, and when that happens, I’m not gonna be sad about it,” Kolvet said. 

Kolvet, who has been bothered by a lot of media coverage since Kirk was assassinated, feels “the most disappointing thing has been this narrative that it’s both sides” and the notion that political violence is “equally as extreme whether it’s on the right or the left.” 

“I think that’s why I keyed in on the Jimmy Kimmel saga because he tried to lie to his audience and tell us that it was actually somebody from the right that killed Charlie and that’s just simply not true,” Kolvet said.

“There’s no facts that back that up,” he continued. “And that strikes me as a really fundamental problem because… if you feel you can go into that platform and lie brazenly… that says that you don’t care about us as humans. That tells me that you think that we are worth smearing, slandering, lying about and dehumanizing people. And that’s how we get this violence in the first place.” 

A recent PBS News/NPR/Marist poll showed that nearly a third of Americans believe political violence “may be necessary,” but Kolvet said anyone who shares Kirk and TPUSA’s ideology simply wants peaceful dialogue. 

“The message that we have been preaching and shouting from a rooftop for years now, along with Charlie, is that violence is never the answer,” Kolvet said. 

“So, I don’t wanna hear about both sidesism because it simply is just not true. We have been dehumanized. We’ve been called fascists and Nazis and White supremacists and Christian nationalists and any other pejorative that they can sling at us for long enough,” Kolvet said. “That’s unfortunate because that takes the humanity out of us. That takes our shared American identity away from us.” 

Kolvet argued that Kimmel’s remarks helped fuel a false narrative about the shooter’s political affiliation.

“That’s one of the reasons why being loud about Kimmel was so important, because it was important to set the record straight. We need to properly identify which ideologies are getting radicalized in this country. And we need to do our best to put those in check,” Kolvet said.