On CNN, their paid ranks of actual conservative political commentators — Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton, Brad Todd, and David Urban — can only do so much and be in so many places at once.
Thankfully, other, unpaid conservatives are capable of holding serve, as exhibited by former Congressman Peter Meijer (R-MI) schooling a Joe Biden regime official on Tuesday’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt over Jimmy Kimmel, Google censoring conservatives, and the left’s warped sense of emotion over Kimmel being put in timeout versus Charlie Kirk being murdered.
Dan Kohn — who was Deputy Assistant to the President under Biden — had inadvertently cued Meijer up when discussing the Kimmel suspension, whining “it is madness” anyone would support Kimmel’s suspension while the Trump administration has been “silencing opposition” day and night.
Meijer wasn’t having it and interjected with a simple statement: “Who was silenced? Nobody was silenced!”
When Koh replied “Kimmel was taken off the air” and “universities [are] afraid to speak their mind,” Meijer reminded him the ultimate decision was made “by a private company.”
Meijer then gave everyone a basic education about broadcast networks: “[E]very single one of the reasons why the FCC has a role is because these are broadcast stations with a monopoly that was granted by the government.”
Rebutting the notion that the Trump administration suspended Kimmel, Meijer noted “[t]he reason why Jimmy Kimmel got himself into the first place is he was repeating a lie believed by one in three Democrats that the person who assassinated Charlie Kirk.”
Koh said this wasn’t true, leaving Meijer to lower the boom about the left being more upset about Kimmel than Kirk even though the former is very much alive:
We can parse his verbiage all day long if he comes out and says, listen, that was not what I was trying to say. Thank you. Fantastic. I appreciate that, Mr. Kimmel. The problem is, that is believed, and we have spent way more time treating Jimmy Kimmel as a victim than the person who was shot and killed in front of their wife and children.
The Biden flack found himself stuck in another trap when he posed what he thought was a hypothetical about Biden regime censorship. Thankfully, Meijer informed Koh and viewers about Google’s recent admission that the previous administration pressured them to deplatform opposing voices (click “expand”):
KOH: Let me ask you a question. If Joe Biden took down a prominent right-wing personality on TV for what he or she said, would you endorse that?
MEIJER: Your hypothetical if the Biden administration went and jawboned let’s say social media platforms into deplatforming —
KOH: I’m talking about a similar category of someone on TV.
MEIJER: — hundreds of conservatives?
KOH: Will you answer my question?
MEIJER: No. That is literally what the administration that you served did. Google just released all of the components.
KOH: A broadcast TV host taken down for words that they say or intimidated on.
MEIJER: When was that?
KOH: I will not approve the merger of —
MEIJER: In the history of the FCC, they have done that plenty of times on the right. There’s a reason why —
KOH: Was the FCC chair saying, we’re going to do this the easy way or the hard way, like a mobster? Where they?
MEIJER: Your administration deplatformed and kicked off of social media — you want to talk about actually silencing? Having any single public outlet that you have on allowed to broadcast something, right?
With time running out, Meijer reminded everyone that Kimmel was hours from returning to ABC and, if he eventually leaves, he’d be free to find a new home whereas Kirk won’t:
Jimmy Kimmel could go on MSNBC tomorrow. He’s going back on ABC tonight. This man has not been silenced. Charlie Kirk been silenced because he’s dead. A lot of conservatives were silenced on social media platforms because the government threatened those social media companies. Facebook, Google, Twitter. You can go down all the list. YouTube again, just acknowledged to Congress today that they did that at the behest of the Biden administration.
Koh tried one last time to school him by wondering if he supported the suspension, but Meijer again had one more zinger: “No, I don’t, but I don’t care about Jimmy Kimmel.”
Meijer also weighed in on President Trump’s address to the United Nations, presenting the right’s view when the show’s text-chain and on-air comments universally loathed it:
Hunt had him join former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) in lampooning former Vice President Kamala Harris’s book tour:
To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 23, click here.
