Barack Obama has condemned the Trump administration for its actions in the lead-up to Disney's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel's late-night comedy show.

"After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn't like," the former president wrote in a post on X on Thursday.

The statement came about 15 hours after Disney announced it was suspending Kimmel.

"This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent - and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it," Obama continued in a follow-up post, linking to a New York Times article about the firing of Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, who said she was let go for her comments on social media after Kirk's death.

Kimmel's late-night talk show has been taken off the air indefinitely, after the TV host and frequent Trump critic accused the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement of scoring political points off the death of Kirk.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely," an ABC spokesperson told CNN.

Kimmel suggested during his Monday evening monologue that the suspect in Kirk's killing, Tyler Robinson, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.