There's wiggle room in a court of law, but in natural language it's not only the listener who should be critical of the wording of things, but the speaker's own internal critical sense analyses what you say all the time and catches things that could be misinterpreted. If I remarked "those are some big boobs" I could be referring to a serious of large errors someone made. But my internal alarm would be sounding the alarm and realising I was speaking in a way that could easily be misinterpreted and I would say it differently. So maybe in a court of law he can claim that his words don't necessarily mean what people have taken them to mean. But in practice he and everyone else knows exactly what he was saying.
Being selective with the context and allowances of certain words and actions is nothing new on the Left. I agree with you that Kimmel was basically saying the shooter was right-wing and the doubling down he made after his suspension would indicate this, however he now has moral justification in his and the left's eyes to double down on his comment, all without outright saying what he's implying.
When Twitter banned right-wingers pre-Musk, it was "muh private company," but when ABC suspends Kimmel because Nexstar & Sinclair won't air him anymore, it's suddenly a "grave violation of free speech". When the rules do or do not apply is such a commonality of their mindset that you could probably predict the trajectory hereon out.
>Kimmel airs to massive losses because ABC isn't being paid to air the show on any tv network (they may livestream the show on Youtube or something and count those waters are viewers too make it out to be a success). "You're
trying so hard to prove this guy isn't one of
you." Again, he's not saying the words, "The shooter was right-wing." But he's heavily infers it.
>Airing of show is declared as "a win for free speech". For PR/"True believer" reasons ABC will either keep airing the zombie show (which will see quality further crater because nobody wants to guest for free/low pay on a show nobody is watching) or Disney will put his show on Disney+ for a pity run to bring in some subscribers and just take the loss.
>Kimmel won't see his contract renew and people will quietly forget he was ever made a "martyr" for free speech; if Colbert (most watched late night hose) isn't bringing in enough viewers to keep his show going forever (finishes in 2026), Kimmel sure as shit isn't worth whatever his price is.
TLDR: Yes, he knew what he was saying, but the Left don't give one iota of a shit about lying so long as their lies are "moral".