Jimmy Kimmel has never missed an opportunity to sh*t all over Donald Trump for the many, many (MANY) terrible things he has done — both in and out of office. And it turns out that all that MAGA vitriol may have lost Kimmel about half his audience — a statistic the late-night host was proud to share while appearing on the Naked Lunch podcast last week.
When ABC executives reportedly asked Kimmel to tone down his anti-Trump rhetoric, he stood his ground and told them to replace him if they wanted.
While it’s Kimmel who was the clear winner in his fight to do the show the way he wants to, Trump, meanwhile, has been taking a victory lap to celebrate how he “destroyed” late-night TV as we know it. And the former president has clearly been listening to Kimmel’s response, because he mentioned him by name at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night. “It turns out Fiberace gave me a shout-out during one of his blue-collar comedy tours,” Kimmel explained on Monday night, “and I have to say: Sometimes it feels like he doesn’t like me that much.”
While stumping for his fellow Republicans in Latrobe, Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump boasted about how “all these people who don’t like us are dying. I saw Jimmy Kimmel said that his show is practically dead because nobody that likes Trump will watch. And guess what? That turned out to be a majority of the people. The show is dead. And so are the other ones.” Which had Kimmel laughing, and ready to fire back:
That’s right. Our show is dead. Our show is so dead he’s going to bury it next to his ex-wife at one of his golf courses. You know what’s dead? I’ll tell you what’s dead: All those endangered animals your chinless sons shot, that’s what’s dead. You know what’s dead? The look in your wife’s eyes when you beg her for sex on your birthday.
And I will say: In January, our show will have been on for 20 years. You got kicked out after four, ok? I’m on television; you’re on the toilet at your golf club screaming at yours.
Kimmel also couldn’t help but note the irony that Trump was calling him out while at a rally for Dr. Oz, who the host described as “a total phony.” You can watch the full clip — including a personal story about a dinner Kimmel once had with Oz and a story he told him about Trump — above, beginning around the :30 minute mark.