On Monday, Stephen Colbert announced that Kimmel would be returning to his show this week, telling his Late Show audience, “Our long national late-nightmare is over.”
Colbert said it was “wonderful news” for Kimmel and his “amazing” staff but joked about his own recent cancellation, saying he’s now “the only martyr in late night.”
Similar to Colbert, Seth Meyers told his Late Night audience Monday night that he received word moments before taping that Kimmel would be returning. Meyers said there’s been a “massive national backlash to Trump’s crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives.”
Meyers, who Trump has also criticized, joked about his own future at NBC.
“Donald Trump is publicly calling on his attorney general to prosecute his political enemies and said TV networks that criticize him should lose their broadcast license. But that’s not us, right? We’re good? What, we’re on a network? But I don’t even wear a suit. This is a network? I thought we only aired on those gas-station TVs,” he said.
On Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mocked the idea that Kimmel’s suspension was anything but political.
“It was rather shocking that this turnaround occurred, because I was told that the original decision to get rid of Jimmy had nothing to do with the Trump administration and their explicit FCC threat that they could remove the show the easy way or the hard way,” he said.
