Mamdani drops ABC event, Hollywood stars pen letter

Zohran Mamdani, the front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race, said Monday that he was canceling an upcoming town hall with an ABC affiliate in protest of the network’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel‘s late-night talk show under pressure from the Trump administration.

“I am withdrawing not as an indictment of the local affiliate or the hardworking 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 at a campaign event on Manhattan’s Roosevelt Island.

The WABC town hall was set to take place on Thursday, the Democratic nominee’s campaign said.

The cancellation is the latest example of backlash over the decision to yank “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air days after the longtime host’s comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

ABC said last week that the show is off the air “indefinitely” on the heels of Nexstar Media Group saying that its stations affiliated with ABC would not carry Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future” because of his statements tying Kirk’s alleged killer to the MAGA movement.

Those announcements came hours after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested his agency could take action against ABC over Kimmel’s comments.

ABC’s corporate parent Disney remains mum on the question of when — or if — Kimmel’s show will return to the air.

“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 — the cowardice that we have seen typified whether by the parent company of ABC or by so-called leaders like Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams looking to the White House for their path to their future ambition,” Mamdani said.

Cuomo, a former New York governor, and the current New York City Mayor Adams are running as independents against Mamdani.

“We have to understand who suffers in these moments. It’s not just a question of Jimmy Kimmel himself, it’s also a question of the engineers, the writers, the musicians who are feeling this attack on the very city they call home,” Mamdani said.

“The message that it sends to each and every American across this country is a message that the First Amendment is no longer a right that can be counted on, but rather that it is the government which will determine what should and should not be discussed, what can and cannot be spoken,” he said.

Meanwhile, a slew of Oscar winners and other Hollywood artists are backing Kimmel in a new letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Last week, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after the government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation,” said the ACLU’s letter, which has more than 400 signatories.

“In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk show hosts, artists, creatives, and entertainers across the board. This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees,” the letter says.

Stars who signed the letter include Academy Award winners Robert DeNiro, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand.