Robert De Niro reenacted his FCC chair persona on Jimmy Kimmel’s show on October 1, 2026, threatening the host with a baseball bat and mocking the agency’s regulatory pressure over Trump jokes.
Robert De Niro returned to Jimmy Kimmel Live! on October 1, 2026, reprising his role as a mob boss-style Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair to lampoon the agency’s scrutiny of the late-night host’s jokes about President Donald Trump. The sketch, which echoed a 2025 appearance, saw De Niro wield a baseball bat while asking Kimmel if he felt threatened by the FCC and demanding he balance insults with praise for the president.
De Niro’s FCC Chair Persona Returns
During the monologue, Kimmel referenced his 2025 suspension from ABC after the FCC threatened the network over a joke about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death. While I would like to say that things have improved over the last year, they haven’t really,
Kimmel said. We are still being threatened by the FCC.
De Niro emerged onstage, brandishing a bat and declaring, You’re being threatened by the FCC? Who is threatening you? Am I threatening you?
He then demanded Kimmel shut that fucking mouth of yours
and presented a list of 192 insults targeting Trump, including nicknames like “Mar-a-Lardo” and Captain Cankleroo.
Every time you insult the president, you’ve got to follow it with something nice,
De Niro’s character insisted, offering a hypothetical example: If you were to say something like, ‘Trump wasn’t invited to Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday party cuz they were afraid he’d start eating the cake before the kid jumped out,’ then you got to also compliment his penmanship in that naked lady birthday poem he didn’t write.
The surprise appearance took place during a week of shows broadcast from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A woman playing devoted presidential aide Natalie Harp handed the actor a dossier detailing the numerous instances of the comedian making fun of the president’s appearance. When Kimmel attempted to interject during the reading of the insulting nicknames, De Niro barked at him to shut up before continuing his inspection to make sure the host was abiding by the terms of his broadcast license. De Niro’s vast body of work features an Oscar-winning performance as a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, Al Capone in The Untouchables, and, most recently, the roles of both Vito Genovese and Frank Costello in The Alto Knights.
Kimmel’s Ongoing Tension with the FCC
The skit directly mocked the administration’s crackdowns on media outlets, following Kimmel’s suspension in September 2025. Kimmel disclosed last month that his program was forced to move a planned television interview with James Talarico, a Democratic Senate candidate from Texas, exclusively to YouTube due to pressure from regulators.
De Niro’s portrayal of FCC Chair Brendan Carr echoed real-world tensions. In 2025, Carr had made comments on a podcast hours before Kimmel’s suspension, suggesting the host could be dealt with the easy way or the hard way.
Kimmel had likened Carr’s remarks to a threat, a reference De Niro’s character humorously reenacted during the sketch by prodding the host in the stomach with his bat and asking if he felt threatened.
A Satirical Clash of Power
The bit concluded with De Niro’s character declaring, Finally! You got it,
as Kimmel quipped, It just seems to me like you’re trying to control what I do and do not say by abusing the power of the federal government.
De Niro’s Carr then exited after shouting a final profanity, while Kimmel watched him go.
The appearance marked a continuing collaboration of political satire on Kimmel’s show, following previous segments addressing federal oversight. Robert De Niro has frequently traded public barbs with the administration, with the president previously labeling De Niro a sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ.