CELEBRITY
Jimmy Kimmel Responds to Donald Trump’s Threat to ‘Test ABC’ After His Late-Night Show’s Return
Jimmy Kimmel addressed President Donald Trump’s criticisms of his show’s return directly during his second show back.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the air on Tuesday, Sept. 23 after a six-day hiatus, and during his monologue on Wednesday, Sept. 24, the late-night host, 57, read through Trump’s reaction to his show getting back on the air.
“You know, a lot of people watched our show last night,” Kimmel said as his monologue began. “I got so many texts from so many people. It made me realize how many of my friends are never watching the show at any other time. Tomorrow, I’ll hear from no one.”
”I did hear from one very special friend, moments after we taped our show last night, the mad red hatter wrote, ‘I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,'” Kimmel said, reading directly from Trump’s Truth Social post. “You can’t believe they gave me my job back? I can’t believe they gave you your job back! We’re even.”
”And there’s more: ‘The White House was told by ABC that his Show was canceled!’ No, they weren’t,” Kimmel said, continuing to read and dissect Trump’s post. “‘Something happened between then and now because is audience is GONE and his ‘talent’ was never there.'”
Someone then yelled from the audience and Kimmel quipped: “Shut the f— up. The freedom of speech is only for me. You do not interrupt the president.”
As he continued to read Trump’s post, Kimmel responded to the “threat” that the president made toward ABC.
”Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Trump wrote in the post, and Kimmel pointed out that Trump’s claim that Jimmy Kimmel Live! “puts the network in jeopardy,” referring to ABC, is a “threat.”
In Trump’s post, he wrote, “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers!”
”Only Donald Trump would try to prove he wasn’t threatening ABC by threatening ABC,” Kimmel said in response.
”And you almost have to feel sorry for the people who work for him, who try to clean up the messes …JD Vance today made the claim that what the FCC Chairman said was a joke. Which, I don’t know, maybe that was a joke? I don’t know,” Kimmel said, referring to comments FCC Chairman Brendan Carr made on Benny Johnson’s podcast about how ABC could face further consequences past Kimmel’s suspension.
”They go to all these lengths to say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t coercion, the President was just musing,’ and then the second Trump is alone, he sits on the toilet, he gets his grubby little thumbs on his phone, and he immediately blows their excuses to smithereens — and says it was ratings that got me fired. Has anyone ever been fired for bad ratings on a Wednesday?”
”This was his big closer: ‘Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings.’ And he does know bad ratings. He has some of the worst ratings any president has ever had,” Kimmel said, as data from The Washington Post, The Economist and two other polls showed a 55% or 56% unfavorable rating for Trump. “So, on behalf of all of us, welcome to the crappy ratings club. Mr. President.”
Kimmel said that Trump’s next move will be to “try to sue us, and I wanna say, good luck with that. Because we thought about it, we packed the courts, and we have a surprise ace up our sleeve, Mr. Judge Steve Harvey.”
An ABC spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE that Kimmel’s show would be taken off the air indefinitely on Sept. 17, after Kimmel made comments about the death of Charlie Kirk in his Sept. 15 monologue.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving,” he said in the monologue.
“On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.”
A clip was then shown of Trump, 79, taking questions from reporters after the shooting, one of which offered their condolences for the death of the president’s “friend” Kirk. When asked how he was holding up, Trump replied, “I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”
Trump continued discussing the ballroom plans, saying the result would “be a beauty.” The cameras then cut back to Kimmel, who quipped, “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction.”
Prior to the episode, Kimmel had offered his condolences to Kirk’s family on social media. “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” he wrote. “On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
Kimmel’s show is not being broadcast on some ABC affiliate channels — he noted in his monologue that cities including Seattle, Nashville and Salt Lake City could not watch his show — as both Sinclair and Nexstar Media continue to preempt programming.
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