Zohran Mamdani agrees to ABC town hall after Kimmel reinstated

Source: The Guardian

Mon 22 Sep 2025 21.16 EDT
First published on Mon 22 Sep 2025 15.30 EDT


Zohran Mamdani, the New York Democratic mayoral candidate, said on Monday evening he was willing to appear at a town hall hosted by a local ABC station after the national network said it would reinstate Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. Mamdani had announced his withdrawal from the televised town hall hosted by a local ABC station in protest of the network’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s talkshow.

ABC pulled Kimmel’s late-night show off air on 17 September after the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses if the network did not act against Kimmel. Kimmel had criticized the Trump administration’s reaction to the killing of rightwing youth organizer Charlie Kirk.

Kimmel’s suspension sparked backlash from politicians, media figures and free-speech organizations, and it has prompted boycotts and protests against both ABC and its parent company, Disney. Mamdani, who was set to participate in a town hall event with New York’s WABC on Thursday, had said he would no longer take part.

“I am withdrawing not as an indictment of the local affiliate or the hard-working journalists, but rather in response to the corporate leaders who have put their bottom line ahead of their responsibility in upholding the freedom of the press,” Mamdani said earlier on Monday during a news conference. We cannot understand this moment of authoritarianism as solely coming from the White House, when it is also characterized by the cowardice of those in response to it.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/22/zohran-mamdani-abc-town-hall-jimmy-kimmel