Breaking: Jimmy Kimmel Returns

And on the latest show, Matt Lewis and I talk mixed feelings on messages from Charlie Kirk funeral, Dem tactics and more.

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🚨🚨 Jimmy Kimmel returning to ABC Tuesday, per multiple reports citing a statement from Disney communications reading in part: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to further avoid inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” 🚨🚨

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Now, to the show, with Matt Lewis.

Matt and I go way back, I’ve often leaned on him to understand the intersection (and overlap) of religion and politics, including attending Bible Study with him at his church.

In this episode, I asked him what he saw that was new from the Charlie Kirk funeral Sunday. (We taped this before news broke of Kimmel’s return.”

Co-opting Christianity?

Matt said that he had mixed feelings watching the Kirk funeral Sunday. On one hand, he was heartened to see new people opening to Christianity, drawn in by the momentous event. But on the other, it was tarred by Trump claiming the religion as his own, and turning it to promises of violence.

In context, it’s hard to ignore the autocratic push by Trump and his team. Free speech is under attack, he’s demanding political prosecutions without sufficient evidence

And Matt also has a very candid moment, regarding the best response by Democrats: Trying to hold the institutional norms in place clearly failed. Maybe it is time for some of the same aggression Trump and MAGA have been using for years now, he says.

America’s New Late Night Comedy

I enjoyed this very insightful chat with Elise Labott on what it would like here if Trump and team successfully use Viktor Orban’s playbook in Hungary to squash free speech, our nation’s bedrock.

Big thanks to our friends at Political Voices Network where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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