An ABC affiliate in Dallas apologized on Thursday morning for abruptly cutting off Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue about gun control the night before, blaming technical difficulties and not some “intentional” act as pondered by the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host.
“WFAA apologizes for technical difficulties that interrupted Wednesday’s @jimmykimmel show at multiple points, including during his monologue on gun control,” the station tweeted.
“WFAA extended its Wednesday 10 p.m. newscast for important coverage of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ aired immediately following our newscast. Unfortunately, the automated system that triggers commercials aired the first commercial break in error, interrupting Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue,” the station wrote in its full statement. “The same technical error also impacted two commercial breaks later in the program, not just the one interrupting the monologue. WFAA apologizes for this error.”
The apology came after the late night host called out the station directly on his own Twitter on Wednesday night, saying he wasn’t sure if the monologue was cut short “intentionally or inadvertently.”
Multiple employees of WFAA also addressed the situation on Twitter. Station manager Carolyn Mungo promised that the station would be “airing his monologue in its entirety on Daybreak and our Midday show Thursday,” and morning anchor Marc Istook assured that “we’re making sure our viewers will get to see it here too.”
The late night host came to tears as he reflected on the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas this week. He encouraged people to be vocal with their elected officials, warning that “this is not a time for moments of silence. This is a time to be loud, and to stay loud, and not stop until we fix this.”
“There have been 27 school shootings so far this year in this country. And it’s May. How does this make sense to anyone?” he said. “These are our children. And our representatives are supposed to represent us. We want limits on who can walk around with an AR-15. And it damn well shouldn’t be a teenager who works at a fastfood restaurant. If we can’t agree on that – forget it.”
Kimmel later issued a plea to voters: “If you care about this – and we all do, doesn’t matter what party we vote for – we all care about this. We need to make sure that we do everything we can- to make sure – that unless they do something drastic – that let’s make sure that not one of any of these politicians – ever holds office again.”
You can watch Kimmel’s full opening statements from Wednesday night’s show here.