Jimmy Kimmel slammed the report that the Trump White House forced Disney to censor his jokes

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Former President Donald Trump is pressuring his Disney staff to suppress late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show, according to Rolling Stone.

Trump in early 2018 was “so incensed by Kimmel’s comedic jabs that he ordered his White House staff to call one of Disney’s top executives in Washington, DC, to complain and demand action,” according to report.

Disney is the parent company of ABC, which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

Trump aides placed at least two separate phone calls during that time to convey “the intensity of his anger with Kimmel,” former administration officials told the outlet. Aides pushed Disney to “restrain” Kimmel and said Trump felt Kimmel was “very dishonest and doing things that [Trump] would have sued,” a former official told Rolling Stone.

One target of the White House’s failed campaign to censor Kimmel was former Disney lobbyist Richard Bates.

Word of the pressure campaign spread and other administration officials who had nothing to do with it began to hear from their Disney contacts who expressed confusion at the demands.

“At least one call was made to Disney [that I know of],” said a third ex-officer at the exit. “I don’t know whose[m], but it happened. No one thought it would change anything but DJT was committed to it so we had to do something…It does something, usually, to tell the [Trump]’Hey, we did it.'”

Kimmel mocked the report on Twitter, calling it “another perfect call” in reference to Trump’s defense of calls that have put him in legal jeopardy in the past.

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The report highlights Trump’s efforts to use White House power to target his critics and late-night hosts.

In 2017, then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai launched an investigation into CBS host Stephen Colbert after he mocked Trump in a monologue. Pai, who was appointed by Trump, suggested that Colbert’s remarks were “obscene” and promised to take “appropriate action.” The FCC ultimately took no action despite announcing that it had received thousands of complaints about the broadcast.

Trump at the time lashed out at Colbert, saying his 2015 appearance on his program was the “highest ratings he’s ever had.”

“You see a talentless guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says,” he told Time in 2017. “And what he says is dirty. And you have kids watching. And it just makes my base. It’s just helping me, people like him. The guy was dying. They were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying.”

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