By Liam Reilly, CNN

(CNN) — After remaining mum on fellow ABC host Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension last week, the hosts of “The View” on Monday spoke out against the Trump administration’s recent crackdown on free speech.

“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? Have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons?” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said at the top of the broadcast. “No one silences us,” she said.

Goldberg explained that the long-running daytime talk show hadn’t addressed Kimmel’s indefinite suspension during Thursday’s and Friday’s broadcasts because the co-hosts “took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first.”

While the co-hosts did not directly attack ABC or its parent company Disney for benching Kimmel, they did sharply criticize what they described as the Trump administration’s attacks on the First Amendment.

Disney removed Kimmel from the air last week after Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned Federal Communications Commission chairman, threatened to revoke ABC affiliate licenses over Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer.

“You can not like a show, and it can go off the air. Someone can say something they shouldn’t and get taken off the air,” Goldberg said. “But the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.”

Co-host Ana Navarro, who likened Trump’s attacks on the press to the actions of dictatorships she lived under in Nicaragua, expressed dismay at “how the government itself is using its weight and power to bully and scare people into silence.” She added: “This is what dictators and authoritarians do; it does not matter the ideology.”

“The First Amendment is the first for a reason, because you need to be able to hold those in power accountable,” said co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official-turned-critic.

Kimmel has yet to publicly address his suspension. Meanwhile, “The View,” which is known for its fiery, no-holds-barred criticism of President Trump, has come under its own fire from the Trump administration.

In late July, FCC chair Carr told Fox News that the long-running talk show was “in the crosshairs of this administration” because of co-host Joy Behar’s repeated attacks on the president.

And on Thursday, following Kimmel’s suspension, Carr told CNN commentator Scott Jennings that it might be “worthwhile” for his agency to also target “The View.”

The co-hosts of “The View” did not address Carr’s threats on Monday. Instead, Goldberg ended the conversation by imploring viewers to stand up for free speech.

“We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free,” Goldberg said.

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