“ Jimmy Kimmel Live” hit 6.3 million views on ABC on Tuesday despite being unavailable in 23% of U.S. households due to preemptions by Nexstar and Sinclair.

During Tuesday’s broadcast, Kimmel joked about the strong viewership his return episode was likely to achieve. Throughout the six days that “ Jimmy Kimmel Live ” was off the air, Donald Trump, Fox News anchors and other critics of Kimmel claimed that the show gets “no ratings.” “Well, I do tonight!” Kimmel said in his monologue. “You almost have to feel sorry for [Trump]. 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 spent most of the monologue emphasizing the importance of free speech

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