David Letterman Says Kimmel’s Suspension Is ‘Just Not How This Works’

“We all see where this is going,” the longtime late-night host said of ABC’s move to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show after pressure from the Trump administration.

David Letterman, the longtime late-night host, sharply criticized ABC’s move to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show after pressure from the Trump administration, calling the decision “a misery” and “ridiculous” during a panel he attended on Thursday.

Speaking at The Atlantic Festival on Thursday afternoon in Lower Manhattan, Mr. Letterman told Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic: “We all see where this is going, correct? It’s managed media.”

“You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian, a criminal administration in the Oval Office,” Mr. Letterman said. “That’s just not how this works.”

Mr. Letterman joked that he had been “smart enough to cancel myself.”

ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Mr. Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, criticized remarks Mr. Kimmel had made on the show about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Mr. Carr suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC affiliates. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead,” he said.

Mr. Carr joined a growing chorus of conservatives who had accused Mr. Kimmel of misrepresenting the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the man accused in Mr. Kirk’s assassination, during his show on Monday. On the program, Mr. Kimmel had accused Mr. Trump’s supporters of “desperately trying” to paint Mr. Robinson “as anything other than one of them.” Utah officials have said that Mr. Robinson had recently appeared to shift leftward in his views.

The indefinite suspension of the show drew the ire of liberals, who have accused the network of censorship and of bowing to political pressure from the Trump administration.

Mr. Letterman joined the critics on Thursday, noting that he had beaten up on president after president over the years, and “not once were we squeezed by anyone from any governmental agency.”

“Everyone sort of understood, in the name of humor,” he said, “why not?”

“And by the way, the institution of the President of the United States ought to be bigger than a guy doing a talk show, you know?” he continued. “It just — you really ought to be bigger.”

The remarks were a signal of solidarity between one longtime late-night host — Mr. Letterman spent more than three decades behind the desk on CBS and NBC — to another.

In recent months, following the sudden announcement that CBS would cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the current crop of late-night hosts have gone out of their way to support one another. Many spoke out in support of Mr. Colbert on their own programs. In the run-up to the Emmy Awards, Mr. Kimmel went as far as putting up a billboard in Los Angeles declaring, “I’m voting for Stephen” for best talk show. Mr. Colbert eventually won.

On Thursday, Mr. Colbert’s show released a social media post saying it “stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his staff” and offered a clip of its upcoming episode. In it Mr. Colbert mocked a statement made by Mr. Carr about the need for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming they think falls short of community values. “Well, you know what my community values are, buster?” Mr. Colbert said. “Freedom of speech.”

Jon Stewart, who usually hosts “The Daily Show” on Monday nights, will make a rare Thursday night appearance on the show, Comedy Central announced. The network said that Maria Ressa, the author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” would be a guest on the program.

Jimmy Fallon, one of NBC’s late-night hosts, bowed out of a scheduled appearance at a different New York conference on Thursday, Deadline reported. Spokeswomen for the conference and for NBC did not respond to requests for comment. The website for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” listed the actor Jude Law and the journalist Tom Llamas as Thursday’s guests.

A Paramount representative said Mr. Colbert’s guests for Thursday’s show would be the journalists Jake Tapper and David Remnick.

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