TV host Jimmy Kimmel has been pulled off air indefinitely after comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk, ABC has said.

The decision came hours after Brendan Carr, chair of broadcast regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatened to act against ABC and its parent company Disney over the remarks.

In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel said the “Maga gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and of trying to “score political points from it”.

Mr Carr said Kimmel was “appearing to directly mislead the American public”. Kimmel has not yet commented.

Kimmel, who is among the top chat show personalities in the US, has fronted his show Jimmy Kimmel Live! since 2003 and hosted the Oscars four times.

During Monday night’s show, he spoke about flags being flown at half mast in honour of Kirk and mocked US President Donald Trump’s reaction to the shooting.

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,” he said.

That prompted a furious response from Mr Carr, who accused Kimmel of “the sickest conduct possible” and demanded an apology.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr, a Trump appointee, told the Benny Show, a conservative podcast.

“These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Hours later, Nexstar Media, one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, said it would not air Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future”.

Nexstar called his remarks about Kirk “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.

Mr Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” and said he hoped other broadcasters would follow its lead. Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for its planned $6.2bn (£4.5bn) merger with Tegna.

Sinclair, the largest ABC affiliate group in the US, said it would air a special remembrance programme dedicated to Kirk during the original time slot for Kimmel’s show on Friday.

Kirk, a high-profile conservative activist, died of a single gunshot wound while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on 10 September. Tyler Robinson, 22, was charged with aggravated murder on Tuesday, with prosecutors saying they will seek the death penalty.

On the day Kirk was shot, Kimmel took to Instagram to condemn the attack and send “love” to the 31-year-old’s family.

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Speaking during a state visit to the UK, Trump said Kimmel was “fired because he had bad ratings” and “is not a talented person”.

Some prominent Hollywood figures spoke out against Kimmel’s suspension, with actor Ben Stiller commenting: “This isn’t right.”

Hacks star Jean Smart wrote on Instagram that she was “horrified at the cancellation”, adding: “What Jimmy said was free speech, not hate speech.”

Others argued Kimmel’s suspension was not an example of cancel culture.

“When a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time and then that person is punished for it that’s not cancel culture. That is consequences for your actions,” Dave Portnoy, who founded media company Barstool Sports, said.

Meanwhile, House Democrat leaders accused Mr Carr of engaging “in the corrupt abuse of power” and called for him to resign.

“He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC, the employer of Jimmy Kimmel, and forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration,” a statement read.

Kimmel made no comment as he left the show’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard on Wednesday.

His fans, who had been queuing up to join the live audience, expressed disappointment about the suspension.

“This is getting ridiculous and stupid,” Janna Blackwell told the BBC.

“Freedom of speech. He shared his opinion and is being cancelled.”

One of Carr’s leadership colleagues, FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, criticised the regulator’s approach to Kimmel.

She said that “an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control”.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA), Hollywood’s labour union, said the decision was a violation of constitutional free speech rights.

“Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth,” it said.

A source told CNBC that Kimmel had not been fired and network bosses had intended to speak to him about what he should say when back on air.

Kimmel’s suspension marks the latest chapter in the Trump administration’s feud with media companies.

Trump has previously reached settlements with CBS and ABC over separate stories, and launched legal action against the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

In July, CBS announced it would end the Late Show With Stephen Colbert next year after 11 seasons. The company said the move was “purely a financial decision”, a claim challenged by Colbert.

Jimmy Kimmel emerged as more popular than Donald Trump after a spat with the president’s administration temporarily left the talkshow host off the air in September, according to a recent poll.

The survey, published by the Economist and YouGov, asked 1,656 adults in the US whether they viewed Kimmel and Trump favorably. Kimmel registered a net favorability of +3 after 44% of respondents indicated they viewed him favorably, 41% unfavorably and 15% undecided.

Trump, meanwhile, had a net favorability of -13, with 41% viewing him favorably, 54% unfavorably and 5% undecided. That left Trump at a 16-point deficit in terms of popularity to Kimmel, whose suspension and subsequent reinstatement by ABC delighted and then rankled the president.

The Economist and YouGov took the survey in question between 26 and 29 September.

Kimmel’s suspension was announced on 17 September after criticizing the Trump administration’s response to the previous week’s killing of rightwing political activist Charlie Kirk. Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, a regulator loyal to Trump, had threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates unless the network took action against Kimmel.

The move fueled protests, free-speech concerns and calls to boycott products of ABC’s owner, Disney. ABC then reinstated Kimmel six days later, with his industry peers crediting that development to those who had boycotted Disney.

And by 26 September, two companies that own a combined 70 ABC affiliates and had continued keeping Kimmel’s show off its airwaves despite the host’s reinstatement agreed to broadcast it again, ensuring the comedian had fully come back.

Trump at first had hailed ABC’s yanking Kimmel off the air as being “great news for America”. Later faced with the host’s reinstatement, Trump wrote on social media: “I can’t believe ABC … gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back” and insulted the network as “a true bunch of losers!”

Kimmel’s first monologue after his return to the air became his most watched ever on YouTube, raking in more than 15m views on the platform in its first 16 hours there.

During the monologue, Kimmel clarified his stance on Kirk’s death, saying in part: “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”

Kimmel also said his suspension was “anti-American”.

“This show is not important,” Kimmel remarked at the time. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

US President Donald Trump wants to build a triumphal arch across from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, the latest in his efforts to make over the capital city in his style.

The so-called Arc de Trump would commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary next year and is reportedly being privately funded by Trump’s supporters.

A real estate developer by trade, Trump teased plans last week with renderings for the structure being laid out during an Oval Office meeting.

His other second-term developments include a gilded makeover for the White House, paving over the Rose Garden and constructing a $250m ballroom, as well as the clearing of homeless encampments throughout the capital.

What does Trump want to build?

It’s not unusual for a sitting president or first lady to update the White House, but Trump appears to have his sights set on a farther reaching and widely seen development with the new monument.

The president wants the arch to be based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, and to welcome people into the nation’s capital from Arlington National Cemetery as they cross the Memorial Bridge.

“Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they literally say something is supposed be here. We have versions of it… This is a mock-up,” Trump told donors on Wednesday night, referring to a grassy, circular area at the end of the bridge.

At a dinner to unveil his plans for the ballroom, Trump said there were three version of the arch – small, medium and large – but that he liked the largest one the best.

Trump said the ballroom project was “fully financed” and some of the leftover money would be used to fund the arch.

AFP via Getty Images

It’s not yet clear when construction will begin or how much it will cost.

Last week, Trump displayed renderings for the structure on the Resolute Desk showing a map of the Memorial Bridge that also included a replica of the Lincoln Memorial. A model of his proposed archway stood on the Virginia state side of the Potomac River.

On Saturday, Trump posted an illustration of a plan designed by Harrison Design architect Nicolas Leo Charbonneau on Truth Social.

Charbonneau, a partner at Harrison Design, posted a watercolour rendering of the the proposal on social media on 4 September, writing “America needs a triumphal arch!”

Where will he build it and how long will it take?

Plans for Trump’s proposed arch are still taking shape but it is expected to be located across the Potomac River on federal land inside the district’s boundaries.

Developing a memorial in the District of Columbia is complex given its unique states as the capital city, according to Dr Christine Henry, director of the Center for Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

New commemorations typically need congressional approval as part of a 24-step plan developed by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), which approves designs along with the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA).

Federal law prohibits new construction on the National Mall, which is typically the most desirable real estate for monuments.

Preston Bryant, a former chairman of the NCPC who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 and served until 2018 during Trump’s first term said he frequently heard from organisations who wanted to design a monument or memorial on the National Mall.

“The Mall is increasingly crowded and unable to accommodate all who want to have a monument or memorial somewhere on, adjacent to, or otherwise near it,” he told the BBC.

The location that Trump has his eye on appears to a designated area which allows for new memorials, but only if they are of “preeminent historical and lasting significance to the United States”.

Congress gave an exemption most notably in 2003 to make way for the National Museum of African American History and Culture which opened in 2016.

But building a new memorial typically takes years and wouldn’t likely be ready before the nation’s semiquincentennial.

“You have to look at the environmental impact of anything as well as all of these concerns about the aesthetics and the engineering so it usually takes several years to go through a process of designing a new memorial,” Dr Henry said.

The approval process alone would take at least a year, according to Mr Bryant.

“If federal law is followed and the design goes through the NCPC and CFA review and approval process, to then be followed by construction, I have a hard time seeing how this arch will be designed, approved and constructed by July 4th of next year,”

As for who will pay for the new memorial, the sponsors of an approved memorial have to the raise the funds for it and federal law prohibits the use of government funds for such purposes. But that hasn’t always been the case.

In 2005, Congress approved $10m for the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial to match what had been raised from private donors, according to a 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service.+

What are Trump’s other rennovation plans?

According to Axios, Trump has had models and dioramas built for other projects he is considering and has directed how and where new marble-tiled floors would be laid in the White House.

He has also taken world leaders, including Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a delegation of Florida lawmakers on tours of the White House to show them his changes, some of which mirror the aesthetic of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

He unveiled a “Presidential Walk of Fame” along the West Wing colonnade in September, displaying gold-framed portraits of himself and the 44 other presidents along the white exterior wall.

In place of former President Joe Biden’s headshot, Trump instead hung a photo of an autopen signing his name. The move appeared to refer to Trump’s claim that Biden’s use of the autopen signalled his decline at the end of his presidency, although it is common for US presidents to use such a tool.

Critics, including a guest essayist for the New York Times, have called his Oval Office remodel a “Gilded Rococo Nightmare”.

The White House did not immediately respond on Wednesday to the BBC’s request for further comment.