Jimmy Kimmel says President Donald Trump’s fight cost ABC ‘billions’
During the Disney Upfront, Jimmy Kimmel joked that his clash with President Donald Trump has cost ABC and the Walt Disney Corporation “billions.”
Jimmy Kimmel is undaunted by President Donald Trump’s latest threats against late-night TV.
The comedian was responding to the president suggesting he was going to go after late-night hosts and take credit for canceling Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show.”
“Shouldn’t the President of the United States be focused on more important things, like finding Milli Vanilli’s replacement for Coachella from Hella on July 4?” Kimmel joked on his June 2 show about the wave of artists dropping out of the Great American State Fair.
“I think Captain Cancleroux might be upset because our show won a Peabody Award on Sunday night,” he continued. “I wasn’t going to mention it because I’m not him, but on Sunday we won the Peabody Award, but it wasn’t the FIFA Peabody Award. It was the real deal.”
In a post on Truth Social on June 1, President Trump boasted that he had “taken out a lot of bad political leaders and pundits” in the past two weeks, including “really stupid Stephen Colbert on CBS,” and suggested other late-night TV hosts would be next. “Three limping late-night talk show hosts remain, including low-rating Bill Maher and his fake ‘Laughter Machine,'” he wrote.
“I don’t know if you’re going to say we’re limping when you hurt your ankle like this, honey,” Kimmel quipped while showing a photo of President Trump’s foot. “Look! It’s like a balloon animal made of sausage links and put on shoes.”
Mr. Trump regularly threatens all late-night TV hosts who have told jokes about him, and Mr. Kimmel is one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal critics. The president also celebrated the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which CBS claimed was due to financial rather than political reasons.
However, the day after Colbert’s last show, Trump posted on Truth Social that “Colbert’s firing from CBS was the ‘beginning of the end’ for a talentless, mean, overpaid, unfunny, and very poorly rated late night TV host. Other less talented hosts will soon follow. May they all rest in peace!”
In April, President Trump called for Kimmel to be fired after the comedian joked that first lady Melania Trump was a “pregnant widow.” But ABC took no action against the comedian, defending the comments as a “very light joke” about “the age difference and the look of joy on her face every time we were together.”
On May 31, Kimmel received a Peabody Award on his late night show. In his speech, he joked that he felt “pretty stupid” accepting the award, saying: “You don’t get an award for telling jokes about the president in America.”
“We have a constitutionally guaranteed right to criticize and satirize our leaders,” he continued. “This is a right that many of us take for granted.”
