Jane Fonda – the woman who sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun while American pilots were being shot down – just called the United States government authoritarian.
Her target: the FCC's decision to review ABC's broadcasting license after Jimmy Kimmel joked about Trump passing away.
One week earlier, an armed man showed up to make that joke a reality.
What Fonda Actually Said
Fonda published a statement in Variety denouncing FCC Chair Brendan Carr's review of ABC's broadcast licenses following Kimmel's "expectant widow" remarks about Melania Trump.
"FCC Chair Brendan Carr's latest order to review the broadcast license of all ABC stations is a naked attempt to weaponize government power against dissent," Fonda said.
She continued.
"What we are seeing fits a deliberate and deeply troubling pattern of authoritarian regimes throughout history – and it should alarm anyone who believes in the First Amendment," she added.
Authoritarian regimes.
https://twitter.com/TRUMPGIRL_STL/status/2050024247234293775?s=20
That's what Jane Fonda calls a licensing review – the same regulatory mechanism that has existed for decades – when it's applied to a network whose host joked about a sitting president dying.
What Was Actually Happening That Week
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, boarded a train and traveled cross-country to Washington, D.C.
He brought a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38 caliber semiautomatic pistol, and multiple knives.
He reserved a room at the Washington Hilton – where the White House Correspondents' Dinner was being held – nearly three weeks in advance.
He took a selfie in his hotel room, armed and dressed in black, about an hour before the attack.
His written manifesto named Trump administration officials as "targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest."
He wrote that he experienced "rage thinking about everything this administration has done."
Just before 8:40 p.m. on April 25, Allen rushed the security checkpoint outside the ballroom where Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Cabinet members were gathered.
He fired his shotgun directly at a Secret Service officer.
The officer survived because of his bulletproof vest.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced federal charges shortly after: attempted assassination of the President of the United States.
"Cole Allen traveled across the country with deadly weapons and a plan to assassinate the President of the United States," said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. "The swift and courageous response of the Secret Service officers prevented unimaginable tragedy."
Trump, who had now survived three assassination attempts, stood before the crowd and asked Americans to "recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully."
That's the man Kimmel called an "expectant" corpse.
When Jane Fonda Lectures About Dissent, Remember 1972
Fonda is not a neutral observer of the line between speech and betrayal.
In July 1972, she traveled to North Vietnam during active combat operations and spent two weeks broadcasting over Hanoi Radio – denouncing American bombing policy directly into the propaganda apparatus of the enemy.
The North Vietnamese used those broadcasts.
She posed for photographs on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun – the same type used to shoot down American pilots.
She later called that image "a betrayal."
Not a mistake.
A betrayal.
Colonel "Bud" Day, a ranking officer at the Hanoi Hilton during Fonda's visit, described her radio broadcasts plainly: "It was worse than being manipulated and used. She got into it with all her heart. She wanted the North Vietnamese to win."
https://twitter.com/Samunit36/status/2050705420277408115?s=20
For fifty years, Fonda has operated inside American media and entertainment with zero legal consequences for conduct that Vietnam veterans still describe as treason.
Now she's writing statements for Variety about the federal government silencing dissent.
This Is the Pattern
Democrats and their entertainment allies run the same play every time.
Someone on their side says something that feeds a climate of rage.
Something dangerous happens.
They immediately reframe themselves as victims and accuse the government of authoritarianism.
Cole Allen's manifesto made the connection explicit.
That rage gets cultivated on late-night television, in celebrity statements published in entertainment magazines, in the relentless daily message that the people running your country are villains who deserve what's coming to them.
https://twitter.com/TrumpsHurricane/status/2051298680431382760?s=20
The FCC isn't silencing Jane Fonda.
It's asking whether a broadcast license – a privilege, not a constitutional right – should belong to a network whose host joked about a president dying days before a man with a shotgun tried to make it happen.
That's not authoritarianism.
That's accountability.
Sources:
- Paul Bois, "Jane Fonda Denounces FCC's Review of ABC License After Jimmy Kimmel Remarks About Trump Dying," Breitbart, May 2, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Suspect in White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Charged with Attempt to Assassinate the President," DOJ Office of Public Affairs, April 27, 2026.
- Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, press conference statement, April 27, 2026.
- EBSCO Research Starters, "Jane Fonda's Visit to North Vietnam Outrages Many Americans," referencing Colonel "Bud" Day testimony.