🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Jimmy Kimmel launched a blistering takedown of former President Donald Trump as he made a return to his talk show for the first time in several months, following the Writers Guild of America strike.
With the industrial action having concluded in late September, late-night talk shows—which had been off the air since the May 1 strike announcement—returned to screens, including ABC's popular Jimmy Kimmel Live!
And after missing out on weighing in on the number of legal woes that Trump has faced in the months that he was off the air, Kimmel dedicated several minutes of his opening monologue to mocking the 2024 presidential hopeful.
After reading out a message pleading that he not "make the whole monologue about Trump," Kimmel said: "That is a no-can-do. I am backed up like you cannot believe."
Trump is facing four criminal indictments and a total of 91 felony charges so far this year. In April, the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. These concern the $130,000 he arranged for his former attorney Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep secret an alleged affair the pair had before the 2016 election.
Trump has also pleaded not guilty to 40 federal charges. These relate to allegations he retained top-secret and sensitive materials when he left the White House in January 2021, and then willfully obstructed the federal attempt to retrieve the documents.
In August, Trump and several of his allies were charged in Georgia over allegations including racketeering and forgery in their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Earlier in August, Trump was charged with four counts as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe into the events that led up to the Capitol riot in January 2021.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing relating to all the charges and has deemed the affair a political "witch hunt."
"He's taunting us," Kimmel said of Trump on Monday. "He was here in California over the weekend for a fundraiser. While he was here, he stopped at a Carvel ice-cream store and he grabbed 'em by the Cookie Puss. He didn't even ask permission. It's rare you see Fudgie the Whale go into a Carvel, but that's exactly what he did."
The comedian went on to discuss Trump attending a fundraiser near Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
"Supporters from all around the southland paid $600 a pop for bright new ideas like this solution to our ongoing problem with forest fires," Kimmel said.
The TV personality then played a video clip of Trump saying that now California has so much water from heavy rainfall, they should use it to dampen the ground in the forests damp so they don't catch on fire.
"He is so right," said Kimmel. "Why didn't we think of dampening the forest? That should be his slogan for 2024. DTF, dampen the forests."
Kimmel then played a clip of Trump discussing low-flow showers in California. The former president said that the rich people of Beverly Hills, who pay millions of dollars in taxes, now don't smell so good because of restrictions.
"They're taking a shower, they're told to hurry up," Trump said in the footage. "You're only allowed a small amount of water."
"That ridiculous man had the nuclear codes for four years," Kimmel quipped. "Wait until he finds out about the showers in prison. He is not gonna be happy."
Turning his attention to Trump's scores of indictments, Kimmel then took aim at the real-estate mogul for self-reporting his weight at 215 pounds during his booking at Atlanta's Fulton County Jail back in August.
"Trump is now facing 91 felony counts—91 felony counts," Kimmel said as the audience applauded. "It's like all of [Trump's wife] Melania's birthday wishes came true at once. Every time something Trump happened in the news, I would get texts asking me if I was bummed we didn't have a show that night, and mostly, I was fine.
"But the one that really got me was when they booked Trump in Georgia, and he self-reported his weight at 215 pounds. I almost crossed the picket line for that."
Kimmel's broadcast came hours after Trump appeared in a New York court on Monday for his trial into business fraud allegations raised by New York Attorney Letitia James. The former president, his adult sons and his businesses have been accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain benefits such as better bank loans and reduced tax bills between 2011 and 2021.
"If I were the judge in the case he has going in New York right now, I'd start the trial by saying, 'Look, we're gonna get to the fraud thing, but, first, hop up on this scale, big fella,'" Kimmel said. "If he's 215 pounds, that means he is 30 pounds lighter than his last physical. When he was president, he was 245 pounds, which means he is either lying or the Colonel is now frying his chicken in Ozempic [diabetic drug]."
Kimmel then tackled Trump's mugshot, which was taken during his August booking in Georgia and subsequently became a source of income.
"He made a T-shirt out of [his mugshot] to sell to his fans," Kimmel said of Trump. "Now this, to me, is classic Donald Trump. He's selling a 'Never Surrender' shirt with a picture of him in the act of surrendering on it."
Paying further attention to Trump's fraud trial in New York City, Kimmel played a clip of the politician ranting outside the courthouse. In the footage, Trump said that the value of his properties was several times more than what had been suggested.
"Only Donald Trump would try to inflate the value of his assets while on trial for inflating the value of his assets," Kimmel said. "It's unprecedented. It's like if [singer and convicted sex offender] R. Kelly walked up to the courthouse and started peeing on the stairs."
About the writer
Ryan Smith is a Newsweek Senior Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more