WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump called Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night television "GARBAGE" on social media.

Another television host, Piers Morgan, said Kimmel was crying "crocodile tears" after ABC suspended him for comments about the assassination of conversative activist Charlie Kirk. Megyn Kelly, a podcaster who lost an NBC show after comments about "blackface" Halloween costumes, rejected Kimmel’s "self pity." And Sean Spicer, a White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, noted Kimmel hadn’t apologized for his Kirk remarks.

The dismissive reaction to Kimmel’s return suggested the fallout from the 57-year-old late night host's remarks is far from over.

Disney, parent company of the ABC network that airs the show, halted Kimmel’s production on Sept. 17, two days after he said Trump’s supporters were eager to character Kirk’s assassin "as anything other than one of them" and accused them of trying to "score political points" from his killing.

On Sept. 23, Kimmel was back on the air. "It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man," the comedian said, his voice choking with emotion. "I don't think there's anything funny about it."

Two companies that represent groups of ABC affiliate stations – Sinclair and Nextstar – continued to keep Kimmel off the air. Nextstar issued a statement Sept. 23 that "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" would be available on Disney streaming products but "our stations will focus on continuing to produce local news and other programming."

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened an investigation the day of Kimmel's suspension and urged television stations to drop Kimmel's show or face possible fines and revocation of their broadcast licenses.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr said then.

After Democratic California state Sen. Scott Wiener posted that he couldn’t wait to break up Sinclair, Carr said in a social media post Sept. 23 it was evidence that Democrats want to silence dissent.

"Those businesses decided that, in their view, a suspension made sense," Carr said. "Notably, this is the first time recently that any local TV stations have pushed back on a national programmer like Disney. And that is a good thing because we want empowered local TV stations."

Hillary Clinton, the former Democratic senator, secretary of state and 2016 nominee for president, told MSNBC on Sept. 24 she viewed Trump’s moves to silence his critics as "dangerous."

"It’s right out of the authoritarian playbook," Clinton said.

But Greg Gutfeld, a Fox News host, said he was disgusted by Kimmel acting "as if getting fired was the same as getting fired upon." He called media censorship "mutually-assured destruction" after Facebook and Twitter removed conservative voices like Trump during the Biden administration.

"You hunted Republicans, you hunted conservatives," Gutfeld said. "Maybe you won’t hunt us any more if we hunt you."

Trump suggested a new strategy. He noted that ABC had paid $15 million to the president’s foundation to settle a lawsuit over comments anchor George Stephanopoulos made about the civil case columnist E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump.

Trump has complained that 97% of the jokes on late-night shows are against him. He suggested Sept. 23 it could be "even more lucrative" to investigate television networks for basically giving illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee through their broadcasts.

"Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE," Trump said on social media. "He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump, others dismiss Jimmy Kimmel return as 'GARBAGE' and 'crocodile tears'

Reporting by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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