FCC Boss After Jimmy Kimmel Suspended: 'We're Not Done Yet'

Written By Guest User

Plus: Meta announces new smart glasses

Good evening,

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week showed off the new Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses. 👓 They contain a small digital display that can be controlled by hand gestures, via a wristband.

  • They look like regular glasses, but people can watch videos through the display, see and respond to text messages, and interact with a digital assistant without ever having to pull out their smartphone. There’s also real-time translations.

  • The display doesn’t inhibit a person’s view, and it disappears when it’s not being used.

  • Prices start at $799.

Here are two reviews —

  • Clare Duffy, a tech reporter at CNN: “There’s live captioning, navigation, video calling, you can ask AI about your surroundings and also view and respond to messages, all of which I tried in a mostly successful brief demo.”

  • David Murphy, Business Insider: “I tried Ray-Ban's Meta Smart Glasses and they're definitely cool, but more of a novelty than essential tech.”

Remember: Google Glass, introduced a decade ago, was a flop. So the big question now: Will these glasses be the thing to finally make wearables mainstream? Or should we stop trying to make ‘wearables’ happen?

Jill
Managing Editor

🚨 ONE IMPORTANT THING

Trump Warns Broadcast Licenses Are At Risk Over Negative Coverage After ABC Pulls ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Off The Air

The fallout continued Thursday across media and politics after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show “indefinitely.” It followed backlash to comments Kimmel made in a monologue Monday about the motives of the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The decision by Disney, ABC’s parent company, to pull him off the air came hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s words “truly sick” — noting they “can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  • Following the Kimmel move, Carr said Thursday that “we’re not done” seeing changes to the media ecosystem during Trump’s second term.

  • Trump added Thursday evening that federal regulators should revoke broadcast licenses if late-night hosts speak negatively about him, calling the networks “an arm of the Democrat party.”

REWIND: WHAT DID KIMMEL SAY?
During his opening monologue for Monday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel suggested that Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Kirk’s shooting last week at a Utah university, could be aligned with President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.

  • “We hit 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,” Kimmel said.

Amid backlash, Kimmel was reportedly planning a response on his show Wednesday night, after ABC executives raised concerns. A source at Jimmy Kimmel Live! told the Hollywood Reporter that Kimmel was not planning an apology — he was “defending what he said (as) being grossly mischaracterized by a certain group of people” — which did not satisfy some higher-ups.

FOLLOW THE MONEY
FCC Chair Brendan Carr told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson earlier Wednesday that the agency could take action against Kimmel. He warned ABC it could “do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Following Carr’s remarks, Nexstar Media Group, which owns and operates several dozen local ABC affiliate stations, said it wouldn't carry the show “for the foreseeable future.” Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates dozens more ABC affiliates, followed suit. Other media groups were reportedly also threatening to go black during Kimmel’s time slot.

  • That pushed senior leadership at ABC’s parent company, Disney — including CEO Bob Iger — to make the decision to pull Kimmel off ABC airwaves indefinitely. Disney made the decision pre-emptively, before any punishment could take place from the FCC. A source also told the Hollywood Reporter that Disney employees were receiving death threats over the issue and that advertisers were raising concerns.

THE WORLD REACTS
Kimmel’s abrupt removal from the air prompted both praise and outrage, with reactions forming along predictable partisan lines.

On the right: President Trump and MAGA conservatives praised ABC for taking Kimmel off the air.

On the left: Democrats condemned Disney and ABC’s move as a politically charged attack on free speech.

  • In the entertainment industry, stars like Ben Stiller, Henry Winkler, and Kathy Griffin expressed concern.

    • David Letterman, legendary comedian and original host of The Late Show, said at The Atlantic festival, “You can’t fire somebody because you’re trying to suck up to an authoritarian, criminal administration.”

  • Outside Hollywood, former President Barack Obama said the Trump administration is “routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”

California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced Thursday that they were launching an investigation into the Trump administration, ABC, and Sinclair amid Kimmel’s firing.

WHAT’S NEXT?
In his Truth Social post on Wednesday night praising ABC’s decision, Trump compared Kimmel’s removal to CBS cancelling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert earlier this year. “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” Trump wrote.

Meanwhile, Carr told CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Thursday that we are likely to see more changes made to the media ecosystem during Trump’s second term.

Not Left. Not Right. Just Honest.

The Tangle is a rare political newspaper that doesn’t take sides — it lays them out. Every issue highlights what different perspectives are saying, so readers can escape their bubble and make up their own minds.

It’s free, it’s sharp, and it’s for critical thinkers.

Start reading for free.

🚨 ONE THING WE’RE PAYING ATTENTION TO

Russia Running A Network Of "Brainwashing" Camps For Ukrainian Children, A New Report Finds

Russia has subjected Ukrainian children to forced ‘re-education’ in more than 200 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied Ukraine since the war began in February 2022, according to a new report from the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab published Tuesday.

The network of facilities, which include 210 schools, camps, military academies, and schools, are in clear violation of international law.

THE RESEARCHERS SPEAK OUT
"What we’re seeing is an industrialized network of re-education, aka brainwashing to turn Ukrainian children into Russians and, in some cases, to turn certain Ukrainian children into soldiers," said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale research lab.

  • The report says that some children were held at camps and returned home, but others were kept indefinitely and placed with Russian families who formally adopted them. The report is based on publicly available data and satellite images.

TRACKING THE MISSING CHILDREN
The Ukrainian "Bring Kids Back" program, run by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, says more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted since Russia's invasion began. The research lab says that number could be as high as 35,000.

The Kremlin has previously denied the allegations.

  • Latest on the war: President Trump discussed the war in Ukraine during a press conference Thursday with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer — where they showed a united front. Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin “let me down,” but did not indicate any plans to revive ceasefire talks.

⏳ THE SPEED READ

NATION

  • Turning Point USA elects Erika Kirk as new CEO, chair of the board following Charlie Kirk's assassination (FOX)

  • Federal judge blocks U.S. from expelling hundreds of Guatemalan minors (CNN)

  • Trump says he'll seek to designate antifa as 'major terrorist organization' (ABC)

  • Democrats release competing funding bill as tensions over looming shutdown grow (NBC)

  • Texas man accused of threatening NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Queens DA says (CBS)

  • Prosecutor says stalking suspect ambushed Pennsylvania police officers, killing 3 (AP)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

  • Four IDF soldiers killed in roadside bomb attack in southern Gaza’s Rafah (TIMES OF ISRAEL) while UN figures show more than 250,000 displaced from Gaza City in past month (GUARDIAN)

  • Strikes and protests roil France, pitting the streets against Macron and his new prime minister (AP)

  • Peru protests leave nearly 1,000 tourists trapped near Machu Picchu (FOX)

  • Three arrested in the U.K. on suspicion of spying for Russia (BBC)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

  • Nvidia to invest $5 billion in Intel as part of a deal to co-develop data center and PC chips (CNBC)

  • West Coast states issue joint vaccine guidelines in shift away from CDC (ABC)

  • FTC sues Ticketmaster and Live Nation over ticket brokers and fees (AXIOS)

  • CDC pauses remote work arrangements for employees with disabilities, union says (NPR)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

  • Summer I Turned Pretty Movie set at Amazon following series finale (VARIETY)

  • Kate Middleton dazzles in Lover's Knot Tiara at state banquet for Trump (GOOD MORNING AMERICA)

  • Puerto Rican homeowner, 84, sues Bad Bunny over use of iconic house in video and residency (AP)

  • Grand jury declines to indict Houston Texas safety Jimmie Ward in domestic violence case (ESPN)

ICYMI FROM THE 📲

In case you missed it… In her upcoming memoir, 107 Days, former Vice President Kamala Harris revealed that Pete Buttigieg, then Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, was her “first choice” to be her running mate.

According to an excerpt quoted in The Atlantic, Harris wrote the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man.” However, she said having a gay man run next to a Black woman was "too big of a risk."

Guest User
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