Early on Thursday morning, Donald Trump made another plea for ABC to fire the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, writing on his Truth Social platform that he has “NO TALENT” and “VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS”.
On his show later that night, Kimmel was defiant, poking at the president for his previous attempt this fall to get him fired and suggesting that Trump has clearly been watching his show.
“You’ve done this before. You tried to get me fired in September. It didn’t work,” Kimmel said. “Mr President, I admire your tenacity.”
In mid-September, Kimmel’s show was briefly suspended by ABC under pressure from two of the network’s biggest affiliate partners, Nexstar and Sinclair, not to mention Trump’s handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, over comments that Kimmel had made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk a few days earlier.
The comedian said his wife had broken the news to him when he woke up that day that Trump had again called for his firing. “I woke up this morning, I’m in bed, my wife comes out of the bathroom – she’s got her phone. She goes, ‘Um, Trump tweeted you should be fired again.’ I was like, ‘Oh,’ and then I went downstairs and made bagels for the kids.”
Kimmel referred to Trump as a “snowflake”.
“I have honestly lost now of how many times the president has demanded I be pulled off the air,” he said. “Every five weeks, he flips out and wants me fired. If you got this many threats from a neighbor, you’d have no problem getting a restraining order. The judge would be like, ‘Yeah, sounds like the guy’s nuts.’ Boom. It’s disturbing.”
Kimmel said he would be happy to leave his post if Trump was willing to resign as well: “Let’s ride off into the sunset together.”
On his show, Kimmel highlighted an announcement this week from the FCC that said the agency would take public comments for a review of whether national broadcasters – such as ABC – have too much power over the local stations that cover him. Carr, the FCC’s chair, has said repeatedly that local stations don’t sufficiently have the power to push back and pre-empt national programs when they don’t think it’s in the best interest of their local viewers. Public comments are due on 10 December on the matter.
Kimmel said the review was clearly related to what happened in September, when after only a few days – and facing intense pressure from viewers – Nexstar and Sinclair opted to bring back Kimmel’s show. “No doubt because of what happened the last time they tried to strangle me,” he said.
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Referencing Trump’s sexist slam of a Bloomberg News reporter on Friday, Kimmel told the president: “Quiet, piggy.”
Trump has also lobbied recently for NBC to fire another late-night comedian, Seth Meyers. “As I’ve said before, I prefer to handle these situations the way you handle an angry driver who honks and flips you off on the highway,” Meyers responded on his show. “You just ignore them – unless you’re in New Jersey, then, technically, that’s a marriage proposal.”
But, Meyers said, “I take no issue with the president voicing his displeasure with my show: that is his right – and on a lot of nights, he’s got a point!”
