Jimmy Kimmel has responded to President Donald Trump‘s comments about the late night host’s return to air, ABC having lifted his highly controversial suspension on Tuesday. Trump was predictably unhappy with Kimmel’s return, posting to Truth Social, “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back.”
“You can’t believe they gave me my job back? I can’t believe we gave you your job back!” quipped Kimmel.
Stating that Kimmel “puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” the president further stated that he was considering “test[ing] ABC out on this,” implying he would file a lawsuit.
“Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars,” wrote Trump. “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,” quipped Kimmel.
Trump appears to have conflated separate networks which air talk shows, as this is an apparent reference to the $16 million settlement Paramount agreed to pay him in July. The settlement was lambasted by First Amendment and press freedom advocates, and labelled a “big fat bribe” by Late Show host Stephen Colbert. Paramount subsidiary CBS cancelled the Late Show a week later, with the Trump administration approving Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance less than a week after that.
Free speech concerns also arose regarding Kimmel’s suspension, which came just hours after Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC’s broadcasting licence if it didn’t “take action” against Kimmel.
“[Trump’s staffers have] been bending over backwards to say, ‘Oh, he never threatened.’ JD Vance today made the claim that what the FCC chairman said was a joke. Which, I don’t — maybe that was a joke?” said Kimmel.
“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?”
Kimmel drew 1.77 million viewers in Q2 this year, coming second only to Colbert amongst late night shows in their time slot. Though to be fair, Kimmel also pointed out that Trump would know about bad ratings, with multiple polls putting the president’s approval rating at 55 to 56 percent unfavourable.
“He has some of the worst ratings any president has ever had,” said Kimmel. “So on behalf of all of us, welcome to the crappy ratings club, Mr. President.”
Kimmel then addressed critics who believe he is too hard on Trump.
“There are still a lot of people who think I should be pulled off the air for making fun of Donald Trump,” said Kimmel. “So I want to explain. I talk about Trump more than anything because he’s a bully. I don’t like bullies. I played the clarinet in high school, okay? So I just don’t like him.
“Donald Trump is an old-fashioned ’80s movie style bully taking your lunch money, and if you give it to him once, he’ll take it again. Two things he loves, lunch and money…. Rooting for this bully, I don’t care what side you’re on, it’s like rooting for Biff from Back to the Future. Literally, Donald Trump was the model for Biff in Back to the Future. And this is who people are cheering for? I don’t know about you, [but] I’m with Marty McFly.”
Kimmel didn’t spend all of his time on his own fraught relationship with the U.S. president, though. He also touched on the outsized right-wing fury toward a stopped escalator that Trump stood on at the United Nations on Tuesday, with the president having demanded an investigation and the arrest of whoever had turned it off.
“Trump will not release the Epstein files, but we will be doing a thorough and complete investigation into who stopped his escalator,” Kimmel joked.