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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

Jimmy Kimmel on Maga: ‘It’s such a delicate balance between stupid and evil’

man in suit speaks with finger pointed
Kimmel: ‘You mean somebody forgot to not track and document everything elected members of Congress were privately looking up? That is a hell of an oversight.’ Photograph: YouTube

Jimmy Kimmel talked about Pam Bondi and this week’s judiciary hearings as well as the latest climate-destroying victory for the Trump administration.

The late-night host said that Donald Trump “might be feeling a bit lonely this Valentine’s Day” as his recent fundraising email leads with the question: “Do you still love me?”

Kimmel said that then, “like a lot of dirtbag boyfriends, it asks you for money”.

He said that for Valentine’s Day, Donald and Melania Trump will be enjoying dinner – “separately of course” – before speculating that over at JD Vance’s household, the vice-president won’t be getting his wife a gift as “he likes it when she makes him go sleep on the couch”. Kimmel joked: “That’s his sexy time.”

This week Vance has been “weakly defending his boss” with yet more anger over “what are now known as the Trump-Epstein files” given how many times the president is mentioned in them.

Bondi, the attorney general, put on “a nearly five-hour Karen-thon” in front of the House judiciary committee as she was put to task over the handling of Epstein.

A photographer managed to take a picture of her notes, which showed that she has been tracking the search history of Congress members without their knowledge, aiming to use it against them during the hearings.

She even printed it out and put a title on top, leading Kimmel to note that “it’s such a delicate balance between stupid and evil”.

He said it was a “deeply disturbing” discovery, yet when asked about it, House speaker Mike Johnson guessed it was a mere oversight.

“That’s a bad guess,” Kimmel said. “You mean somebody forgot to not track and document everything elected members of Congress were privately looking up? That is a hell of an oversight.”

He added that for the 535 members of Congress, there are only four computers available to look through the 3m pages of the recently released files.

“Pam Bondi has spent more time investigating the people who are reading the Epstein files than the people who are in the Epstein – I mean Trump-Epstein – files,” he said.

This week the House also voted to nix Trump’s Canada tariffs, which led to anger from the president. “Trump has really had it in for Canada ever since he heard about that gay hockey show,” he said.

Kimmel said that “unless he’s able to cheat his way through the next election”, it’s looking like Democrats will take back control of Congress in midterms.

It would make Trump “a lame duck with greatly diminished influence”.

Kimmel said that he also earned the title of “greenhouse gas-hole of the year” as he scored “a great Maga victory” with an order that allows for people to pump whatever they want into the environment without regulation.

He also mentioned the latest bizarre interview with RFK Jr, who said he once snorted cocaine off a toilet seat. “That’s how he killed the brain worm,” Kimmel said.

This weekend might also see a partial government shutdown, which would pause funding for the Department of Homeland Security as Democrats want Immigration and Customs Enforcement to revise policies with some “very basic requests”, essentially the “same guidelines that police have to follow”.

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