Evening Wire: ABC Mutes Kimmel & Kirk’s Widow Helms TPUSA | 9.18.25

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ABC's largest affiliate owner will play a tribute to Charlie Kirk during what was Jimmy Kimmel's hour on Friday.

Erica Kirk is named TPUSA CEO and chair of the board, and SpaceX wins again in court.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe.

It's Thursday, September 18th.

This is Evening Wire.

The country's largest ABC affiliate owner, Sinclair, has pulled the plug on Jimmy Kimmel Live and is filling that time Friday night with a special tribute to Charlie Kirk.

Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham has the details.

Sinclair says it won't restore Jimmy Kimmel Live until ABC holds formal discussions about professionalism and accountability.

The major broadcaster also called on Kimmel to apologize directly to Kirk's family and to donate to Turning Point USA.

The move comes after ABC yanked the comedian show in the wake of backlash over remarks suggesting Kirk's killer was a Trump supporter.

Claims investigators say were false.

Nextstar, another major ABC affiliate group, joined Sinclair in giving viewers a memorial instead of a monologue.

While Democrats call it censorship, FCC chair Brendan Carr calls it community standards.

Here's Carr on CNBC this morning.

The issue that arose here where lots and lots of people were upset was not a joke.

It was not, you know, making fun or pillaring me or the administration or the president.

It was appearing to directly mislead the American public about a significant fact of probably one of the most significant political events we've had in a long time.

TPUSA announced today that its board has unanimously elected Erica Kirk as the new CEO and chair of the board.

The organization added that in prior discussions, Charlie had expressed to multiple executives that this is what he wanted in the event of his death.

It was the honor of our lives to serve as board members at Charlie's side, the board said in a statement.

He worked tirelessly to ensure Turning Point USA was built to survive even the greatest tests.

And now it is our great pride to announce Erica Kirk as the new CEO and chair of the board for Turning Point USA.

The board went on to state, quote, the attempt to destroy Charlie's work will become our chance to make it more powerful and enduring than ever before.

President Trump on Wednesday announced that Antifa has been designated a U.S.

terror group.

In a post on Truth Social, the president referred to the group as a sick, dangerous, radical left disaster.

He also said that Antifa's funding network will be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.

The announcement comes as the administration has signaled a crackdown on radical left groups in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

President Trump joined UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a joint press conference during the President's state visit to Britain.

The two leaders were friendly but had notable disagreements.

The two men have taken different approaches on energy and on recognition of the Palestinian state, for example, as well as on one of the president's favorite issues, immigration.

Here's the president offering his advice to the prime minister on how to achieve historic lows of illegal immigration.

I think it's very important, and we speak about it.

And I think your situation is very similar.

You know, you have people coming in, and I told the Prime Minister I would stop it.

And it doesn't matter if you call out the military, it doesn't matter what means you use, but it's going to destroy, it destroys countries from within.

Former VP Kamala Harris has revealed who her first choice for running mate actually was, and it wasn't the guy she ended up picking.

Daily Wire reporter Zach Jewell has more.

In her new book, Harris reveals that she really wanted to pick then-Transportation Secretary Pete Budajudge as her running mate in 2024, but she decided against it because he was not, quote, a straight white man.

According to portions of her new memoir published by The Atlantic this week, Harris wrote that the openly gay BuddhaJudge was her first choice for her vice presidential running mate.

However, she said she felt that a ticket with Buddha Judge would present a level of diversity that America wasn't ready to embrace.

She wrote, quote, we were already asking a lot of America to accept a woman, a black woman, a black woman married to a Jewish man.

Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let's just do it.

But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.

Harris added, quote, and I think Pete also knew that, to our mutual sadness.

An ICE facility in Portland has become a hotspot for immigration protests and city officials are turning up the heat.

The city announced today that it will issue a land use violation notice to the building alleging that ICE violated the terms of its agreement with the city by holding detainees for long periods of time.

The building's current land use permit bars detentions lasting longer than 12 hours or overnight.

A CDC vaccine panel known as ACIP is meeting today and Friday to make recommendations on the childhood vaccination schedule.

Here are the details as Dailywire reporter Amanda Pressa-Giacomo.

The panel will discuss and vote on recommendations for the COVID vaccine, the hepatitis B vaccination, and the MMR V shot, which protects against measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox.

Reports suggest that the HEP B vaccine will be recommended much later for children if the mother herself tests negative since the disease is transmitted sexually or by blood.

Currently, the first Hep B dose is recommended at birth.

The meeting will also reportedly include the introduction of of five new panel members.

Secretary Kennedy dismissed all ACIP panel members back in June and has been replacing them with professionals that he says are not plagued by conflicts of interests.

Also of note, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which controversially supports trans procedures for minors, they boycotted the meeting, claiming that ACIP has lost credibility under Kennedy.

French First Lady Brigitte Macron will reportedly submit photographic proof that she was born a woman to a U.S.

court.

The first couple of France are involved in a defamation suit against Candice Owens, who has claimed that Brigitte was born male and later transitioned to female.

Macron's lawyer did not share many details, but did say that they would be presenting photos of Brigitte when she was pregnant during her first marriage.

Brigitte met her future husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, when she was 39, and he was her 15-year-old student.

Some of Owens' allegations about Brigitte's past are based on reporting by French journalist Xavier Poussard.

An illegal illegal immigrant shot dead by an ICE agent after hitting him with his car in Chicago last week had been arrested in the past, but was given a deportation waiver under Biden.

Daily Wire immigration reporter Ginny Terror has the exclusive report.

The illegal immigrant shot and killed by an immigration and customs enforcement agent in Chicago last week was previously given a second chance of staying in the U.S.

by the Biden administration.

Federal law enforcement sources told the Daily Wire that the Biden administration granted Silverio Viegas-Gonzalez reprieve despite his 2013 arrest by the Chicago Police Department for reckless driving, assault, speeding, and lacking a license and insurance.

Viegas-Gonzalez struck the ICE agent with his vehicle on Friday while the feds were conducting an operation at Franklin Park.

The suspect was asked to stop his vehicle but continued driving, hitting the agent and subsequently dragging him as he fled the scene, an ICE spokesman said.

Fearing for his life, the agent shot the driver.

Two-thirds of Democrats report a positive view of socialism.

A recent Gallup poll reveals that among Democrats, socialism is far and away the favored economic system.

While Americans broadly prefer capitalism to socialism, that gap is narrowing.

And Democrat favorability towards socialism has increased 16 points since 2010.

A Texas man was extradited to New York and charged on Thursday with threatening New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani.

Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce says more.

Jeremy Fistol, a 44-year-old man from Plano, Texas, faces charges of making a terroristic threat and aggravated harassment.

A law enforcement official told the New York Times that Mondani's campaign received multiple voicemails that included failed threats.

In one voicemail, the caller allegedly said Mondani is a terrorist who is, quote, not welcome in New York or America.

The caller also said that the socialist mayoral candidate should be cautious when starting his car.

Tech innovator NVIDIA announced a $5 billion investment in Intel in parallel with the U.S.

government's efforts to boost homegrown semiconductor capability.

Under the deal, Intel and NVIDIA will collaborate on custom products for data center and personal computing applications.

Intel's stock price surged 25% following the announcement.

And SpaceX gets a big win in court.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from environmental activists that would have stalled launches from Starbase, that's the newly incorporated city in South Texas, which will serve as a launch site.

Environmental groups insisted that noise, construction, road traffic, and light pollution from rocket launches endangered local wildlife, including ocelots, jagarundis, and Kemp's Ridley sea turtles.

This ruling comes shortly after President Trump signed an executive order last month that calls for streamlined environmental regulations for private space companies.

SpaceX has already received FAA approval to ramp up Starship launches from 5 to 25 per year at the Texas site.

Those are your drive home updates this evening.

To learn more about these stories, go to DailyWire.com.

And in case you missed it this morning, we we covered some major stories, including explosive claims that the Biden FBI investigated TPUSA, the Fed finally lowering the interest rate, and Jimmy Kimmel Live getting suspended indefinitely.

Thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with another full edition of Morningwire.