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Matthew Dowd — a political analyst who was fired by MSNBC over his comments about Charlie Kirk — slammed his old network on Friday over its coverage of ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show, claiming that his former colleagues didn’t give his ouster the same energy.
Dowd — in an appearance on Katie Couric’s podcast — alleged that “not one person” at MSNBC has said “anything” about him on air since his firing while describing Kimmel’s suspension as “awful for America” and a “chilling thing for the First Amendment.”
“They’ve all gone out of their way to say, ‘Isn’t it horrible what happened to Jimmy Kimmel?’” said Dowd, the chief strategist of George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign.
Dowd later accused “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of “basically saying they were glad” he was terminated on their show the day after his ouster.
“And now today, they’re talking about how awful it is for our country that somebody like Jimmy Kimmel can’t say what he said and he is indefinitely suspended and not an iota about what their employer just did to another employee,” he continued.
Following threats from President Donald Trump’s administration, ABC’s decision to pull Kimmel’s show off the air has sparked outrage from late night hosts old and new as well as others who have sounded the alarm over the move, calling it an attack on free speech.
In the days since ABC’s decision, MSNBC has platformed takes from the likes of presidential historian Douglas Brinkley — who called the move “Nixonian” in nature — and conservative writer Matt Lewis — who remarked on the right’s new “cancel culture.”
Dowd — in comments after last week’s shooting that were made prior to reports of Kirk’s death — addressed the divisive “environment” in the U.S., telling MSNBC’s Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts, lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”
Dowd’s firing reportedly sparked a flood of people facing consequences over their comments about the assassination.
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Dowd, in a post to social media on Thursday, wrote that MSNBC “has zero moral authority to talk about cowardice of Disney, ABC, or Republicans for bending the knee to MAGA when they did the exact thing” in firing him and others.
“They are doing the exact thing they complain about others doing,” he added.
HuffPost has reached out to MSNBC for comment.
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