The T.V. stars that can't be silenced

Jimmy Kimmel is off the air. Corporate media is acting terrified of the Administration. Will NBA stars re-politicize? Good morning. Let's basketball.

Chances are that if you're paying for an NBA newsletter, you're online enough to know what's going on this particular week: amid a crusade of state-backed neo-McCarthyism against critics of the late Charlie Kirk, Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested regulatory consequences were on the table for Disney/ABC if they didn't punish Jimmy Kimmel for a comment he made in a Monday monologue about Kirk's killer, consolidated affiliate companies attempting further consolidation applied additional corporate pressure, and Disney/ABC pulled Kimmel off the stage right before he started filming Wednesday's episode.

Disney/ABC has received considerable backlash in the wake of the company's spineless reaction to pressure campaign by Carr, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar, with Disney+ cancellation campaigns and boycotts of affiliate advertisers brewing. There is significant fear that Carr's campaign is not over: he has already made comments about another ABC entertainment show that dabbles in politics, The View, and Trump has been encouraging action against late-night comedians on NBC, the last broadcast network with active late-night hosts given Kimmel's silencing.

In about a month, Disney/ABC will have a new set of programming hitting its airwaves, one that does feature a number of Trump critics who have been relatively quiet so far in this second term but were not the first time around. You may remember a certain LeBron James tweet from 2017, responding to Trump announcing that he had uninvited the Warriors from visiting the White House following their NBA championship.

Even before that, Stephen Curry expressed his dislike for Trump openly.

There has been, of course, lots more tension over the years. LeBron sparred with Trump repeatedly (at one point Trump tried to drag Michael Jordan into it; Jordan backed LeBron in the most "don't look at me" fashion ever), Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr frequently critiqued Trump's policies and positions throughout his first term and again during the 2024 campaign, other players and coaches weighed in. This all culminated in the bubble as the murder of George Floyd spurred a temporary work stoppage, some players declining to report to the bubble, other teams apparently wanting to leave the bubble, political (or sociopolitical, more accurately) phrases appearing on the backs of jerseys, knees being taken during the anthem, players organizing and hosting marches and protests, the NBA opening up a bunch of arenas for voting and the most politicized NBA environment ever. Biden won, became deeply unpopular and the politicization of the NBA waned. NBA stars mostly stayed more quiet in 2024 and into 2025 than they had in 2016 and 2017.

With everything at a fever pitch, will that continue now?

Let's start here: athletes are the most protected T.V. stars imaginable.