Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel turned President Donald Trumps latest attack into a counterpunch on Thursday, using the presidents own sagging approval numbers to argue that, by Trumps standard, both men should be out of a job.
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The comedian opened his show with a home video, filmed by his wife, capturing the moment she woke him to inform him that Trump had again demanded his firing. According to Mediaite, the renewed clash followed a fresh post on Truth Social in which Trump derided Kimmel as seriously unfunny and a man who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television.
Trumps post ended with a directive that ABC better dismiss the late-night host soon, a move that underscores how comfortable the president has become with pressuring private companies over speech he dislikes. Reading the message aloud, Kimmel paused and deadpanned, Or what?
As the studio audience booed Trumps remarks, Kimmel sharpened his rebuttal by turning the presidents logic back on him. If incompetently presiding over not just one of but the lowest rating in history is the reason I should be fired, then we should both be out of a job! he declared, adding pointedly, Youre not doing too good either!
The feud intensified after a recent sketch parodying the White House Correspondents Dinner, in which Kimmel joked about First Lady Melania Trump. Following a subsequent shooting at the event, the First Lady accused Kimmel of hateful and violent rhetoric and urged ABC to take a stand, a call the president has now echoed.
Kimmel answered by rolling past clips of Trump on the campaign trail championing free expression and railing against cancel culture, before delivering the punchline: Im starting to think Donald Trump might be a hypocrite. In doing so, he highlighted a tension conservatives have long noted on the left: a professed love of free speech that often evaporates when the speech is offensive or politically inconvenient.
In a twist that cut against the usual partisan script, Kimmel then singled out several Republicans for defending his right to speak, even as they remain frequent targets of his jokes. He praised Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY), noting they had spoken out to support our First Amendment rights.
Every one of these guys Ive made fun of repeatedly and viciously on this show. And you know what, not one of them has done? Pressured ABC to fire me for it, Kimmel said, inadvertently underscoring a core conservative argument: that the proper answer to speech one dislikes is more speech, not corporate coercion or government-fueled cancellation campaigns.
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