Late night has been dying for a decade. Disney gets cover to end the show.
Kimmel knows it’s over. He gets to go down looking like he’s fighting instead of unentertaining.
Trump gets to claim he took down Kimmel, red meat for his base.
News and Social Media gets something to boost their numbers.
The chilling effect is not "kayfabe".
Even better: he uses the opportunity to make it clear that any kind of comment that is out of line with the administration will not be tolerated.
He didn't go down fighting. He went out demonstrating the consequence of not agreeing.
Plus of you're going out in a blaze, it's something more substantive than what he said.
Do you believe that Trump and Kimmel are actually coordinating this behind the scenes? Do you believe that the large majority of both of their audiences understand this to be a show rather than reality?