Jimmy Kimmel returned to "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Sept. 23 almost a week after the show's suspension.
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" slammed President Donald Trump in his Sept. 23 monologue as he returned to late-night.

Jimmy Kimmel didn't hold back in his return to late-night.

The comedian passionately defended free speech and slammed President Donald Trump in a monologue on Sept. 23 as he returned to the air for the first time since being suspended over comments he made after the killing of Charlie Kirk. His suspension came after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission pressured ABC to take action, and Trump celebrated Kimmel being pulled off the air.

In his returning monologue, Kimmel played a clip of Trump claiming that he was "fired" because he has "no ratings."

"Well, I do tonight," he shot back, drawing cheers from his audience.

"You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this, now."

Kimmel went on to thank Disney, which owns ABC, for bringing his show back, and he slammed Trump for pushing for him to be fired.

"(Disney) welcomed me back on the air, and I thank them for that," Kimmel said. "Unfortunately, and I think unjustly, this puts them at risk. The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke."

Kimmel argued he was Trump's next target after the president was "able to squeeze" Stephen Colbert out at CBS, which canceled Colbert's "The Late Show" in July.

"Then he turned his sights on me, and now, he's openly rooting for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows, who don't make millions of dollars," Kimmel said. "And I hope that if that happens or if there's even any hint of that happening, you will be 10 times as loud as you were this week."

In a Truth Social post after Kimmel's suspension, Trump urged NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. "That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC," he wrote. "Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!"

"We have to speak out against this stuff because he's not stopping, and it's not just comedy," Kimmel said. "He's gunning for our journalists, too. He's suing them, he's bullying them."

ABC suspended "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" for almost a week after he said that the "MAGA gang" was "desperately trying to characterize" Tyler Robinson, the suspect charged with killing Charlie Kirk, "as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."

While appearing on a YouTube show, FCC chairman Brendan Carr seemed to threaten ABC to "take action on Kimmel," and Disney then suspended production of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" indefinitely. The show returned on Sept. 23, though Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group both declined to air it on their ABC affiliates, leaving Kimmel off the air in parts of the country.

During his returning monologue, Kimmel choked up as he said it was "never my intention to make light" of Kirk's murder or to "blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual," but "I understand that, to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both."

But Kimmel said it's "important" that "we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this," and he argued Carr's comments putting pressure on ABC were a "direct violation of the First Amendment."

"A government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn't like is anti-American," he said.

Kimmel also played an old clip of Trump stressing the importance of free speech, with the comedian wondering what changed between then and now. Later, he was joined on the show by Robert De Niro, who played the chairman of the FCC and behaved like a mob boss.

"It seems like the FCC is using mob tactics to suppress free speech," Kimmel said, leading De Niro to begin angrily swearing. De Niro's character then declared speech is no longer "free" unless it's pro-Trump.

In a Truth Social post shortly before Kimmel's return, Trump said he "can't believe" the comedian is getting his job back and threatened to sue ABC. "I think we're going to test ABC out on this," Trump wrote. "Let's see how we do."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jimmy Kimmel slams Trump for trying to 'cancel me': 'We have to speak out'

Reporting by Brendan Morrow, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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