What happened
ABC said yesterday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return tonight, ending its “indefinite” suspension after six days. The Disney-owned network benched Jimmy Kimmel’s long-running late-night comedy show last week under pressure from FCC Chair Brendan Carr and station owners Nexstar and Sinclair, following conservative complaints about Kimmel’s quip about President Donald Trump’s MAGA allies trying to politicize the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Who said what
Disney said it suspended “Kimmel Live” to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” but decided to put it back on the air after days of “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.” Disney’s reversal “represented the highest-profile challenge yet” to Trump’s “escalating crackdown” on his “perceived media critics,” Reuters said. But sources said the “U-turn” was “guided by what was in the entertainment company’s best interest, rather than external pressure from station owners or the FCC.” 

Critics from across the entertainment industry and political spectrum expressed alarm about Trump’s use of federal power to erode free speech. But Disney was probably more concerned that “consumers were exercising their own First Amendment rights and ending their subscriptions to the company’s streaming services,” University of New Haven media studies professor Susan Campbell told Reuters.

What next?
It’s “unclear whether Kimmel will offer an apology upon his return or whether affiliate stations across the country will boycott the show,” The Washington Post said. Sinclair said it would broadcast news programming instead while it discussed Kimmel’s “potential return” with ABC; Nexstar declined to comment. Anyone with YouTube access can watch the show online.

What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday allowed President Donald Trump’s removal of the last Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to consider overturning a 90-year-old ruling limiting when a president can dismiss the members of nominally independent boards. The court’s three liberals dissented from the unsigned, unexplained emergency docket decision.

Who said what
After Trump fired the five-member FTC’s two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya (pictured above), in March, Slaughter sued while Bedoya eventually resigned. Slaughter pointed to the unanimous 1935 ruling Humphrey’s Executor, which holds that presidents can only fire commissioners for misconduct or neglect of duty. But the current court’s conservative majority has “all but overturned that precedent in recent rulings,” allowing Trump to dismiss Democratic members of two independent agencies without cause, The Washington Post said. 

“Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in yesterday’s dissent. “Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the president.” The court’s conservatives “may be raring” to overturn Humphrey’s Executor, but it still stands, she added, and the emergency docket “should never be used” to overturn precedent or, “as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers.”

What next?
The Supreme Court will hear Slaughter’s case in December, signaling that a “majority of the court is ready to revisit” the “landmark” check on presidential power, The New York Times said. Slaughter, reinstated by a lower court then suspended earlier this month by Chief Justice John Roberts, will remain fired until the court issues its decision.