Whoopi Goldberg and 'The View' hosts finally react to Jimmy Kimmel's suspension: 'No one silences us'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: 'The View' host Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts finally reacted to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night host remarked on Charlie Kirk's brutal killing on September 10.

ABC announced the "indefinite" suspension of the 'Jimmy Kimmel Show' last week, and Kimmel's colleagues on 'The View' remained silent. Goldberg said that they had intended to give Kimmel some time to make a statement first.

'The View' co-host says 'we must protect freedom to express the thought we hate'

During the Monday, September 22 segment of 'The View', Whoopi Goldberg said, "Did ya’ll really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?"

"I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons, so you know no one silences us," she added, seemingly pushing back on speculation that ABC had pressured them to stay quiet.

'The View' co-hosts also railed against President Donald Trump's administration.

The show's co-host, Sunny Hostin, cited former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr while weighing in on the First Amendment.

Quoting Holmes, she said, "We must protect the freedom to express the thought we hate. So Justice Sonia Sotomayor said last week that ‘every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself that law school failed.’ Well, my law school, Notre Dame, didn’t fail."

"I know very well what the freedom of speech means. I know all of you know very much what the freedom of speech means and the President of the United States should know what freedom of speech means," Hostin added.

Meanwhile, co-host Ana Navarro said during the segment, "I want to start by thanking our loyal viewers for demanding truth and courage from us. You deserve it, and we will give it to you."

She also accused the government of using its power to cow Americans into silence.

"This is what dictators do. It does not matter the ideology. At first, they come before the people with big platforms, at first they silence the press, but then they come for all of us because their intent is to scare us into silence and self-censorship. Look at the things that this government has done," Navarro added.

Jimmy Kimmel’s show to return with a condition

'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' is set to return to ABC on Tuesday, September 23, the network announced on Monday, September 22, and ended a nearly weeklong standoff.

However, not all of ABC’s affiliated stations will be broadcasting Kimmel’s comeback show.

Sinclair, one of the United States' biggest owners of local TV stations, said its ABC affiliates will preempt the show "beginning Tuesday night".

It further added that it will air news programming in the time slot instead.

A Sinclair spokesperson informed CNN, "Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return."

Interestingly, Jimmy Kimmel is planning to address the suspension controversy in his monologue on Tuesday night, a source familiar with Kimmel’s plans told the news outlet.

The late-night show host was suspended last week after he said the MAGA movement was trying to score political points by trying to prove that the 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, accused of killing Kirk, is not one of its own.

He said last week, "The MAGA Gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving."