Former President Barack Obama speaks at the Obama Foundation Democracy Forum, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, in Chicago.

Former President Barack Obama denounced the Trump administration’s targeting of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and warned that its threats to media companies had taken cancel culture to a “new and dangerous level.”

“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama wrote in a Thursday post on X, which linked a Vox story describing ABC’s decision to yank Kimmel off air as a capitulation to Trump officials.

“Let’s be clear about what just happened: Jimmy Kimmel, a prominent late-night comedian, was just taken off the airwaves because the Trump administration didn’t like what he had to say – and threatened his employer until they shut him up,” Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like. https://t.co/uts7JpJZzN

ABC pulled Kimmel’s show indefinitely on Wednesday in the wake of conservative backlash over comments the late-night host made about Charlie Kirk’s........

© HuffPost