While other late-night hosts remained on holiday for the week, Jimmy Kimmel talked about Joe Biden’s visit to Los Angeles and Donald Trump’s shortlist for running mates.
Jimmy Kimmel
Biden visited Los Angeles on Tuesday, exacerbating the city’s already infamously bad traffic. The traffic was as slow as, well, the president himself. “Is there anything more heart-stopping than watching him walk down stairs?” joked Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday evening. “Makes me feel like I’m in the movie A Quiet Place. There’s that much tension.”
The president was in town to raise money for his re-election campaign, “and also to see if Steven Spielberg can de-age him like he did Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones movie”, Kimmel added.
“This is unlike any modern election we’ve ever had,” he continued. “So with that in mind – and I think this is smart – he wants to make it clear to American voters that the choice we’re being asked to make in November is between him and a lunatic.”
According to new reports, Biden instructed aides to escalate the rhetoric about his rival and emphasize all the “crazy shit” that Trump has said. “Operation Crazy Shit is under way,” Kimmel laughed. “And I think this is the right approach. It must be very frustrating for Joe Biden to have all these people doubting whether he’s fit to be in office when he’s running against Herr Mussolini.
“But fortunately, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to keep the crazy train moving,” Kimmel continued. “He had plenty to say last night at the Fox News town hall,” where Trump confirmed some of the names on his shortlist for running mates, including the Florida governor and former GOP presidential rival, Ron DeSantis.
“That’s right, the forecast is cloudy with a chance of Meatball Ron,” Kimmel quipped. “How is Ron DeSantis on his shortlist? Maybe he thinks it’s a list of people who are short?”
Also on the list are Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kristi Noem, Byron Donalds and Tulsi Gabbard. “What a group,” Kimmel deadpanned. “He had better bookings on Celebrity Apprentice. It’s like he went running mate shopping at Goodwill and that’s what they came up with.”
During the town hall, Trump “peddled a new line of nonsense” that the judgment against him in his New York civil fraud case, in which he was ordered to pay more than $350m, was similar to what happened to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison this month. “Trump said the ruling against him in New York is a ‘form of Navalny’, which is a disgusting thing to say,” said Kimmel. “I mean, this is a fine that he got.”
With interest, the penalty is about $450m – “he’ll probably file for bankruptcy to avoid paying it,” Kimmel noted, although the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has said she would consider seizing Trump Tower in payment. “Turns out one of the downsides to putting your name on everything you own is everyone knows who owns it,” Kimmel said.
