President Donald Trump lost it at late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel in a Truth Social post early Thursday, accusing the ABC host of being a “bum” with “very poor television ratings.”
“Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air?” Trump asked in the post. ”Why do the TV Syndicates put up with it? Also, totally biased coverage. Get the bum off the air!!!”
In his Wednesday monologue, which aired just prior to Trump’s post being made, Kimmel suggested that Trump should be bracing for impact as the long-anticipated Epstein files inch toward daylight.
“We are carefully following the path of Hurricane Epstein right now. It is a category 5, it’s expected to make landfall sometime very soon,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump announced that he had signed legislation instructing the DOJ to release the files it has on Epstein within 30 days—attempting to take credit for the disclosure which he had desperately tried to avoid.
“Usually when Trump gets a bill, he declares bankruptcy and doesn’t pay it,” Kimmel joked.
The comedian also spelled out what the release might mean. “We are one step closer to answering the question, what did the president know and how old were these women when he knew it,” Kimmel joked.
Elsewhere in the monologue, Kimmel discussed Elon Musk’s return to the White House after his departure from DOGE in May.
“Their relationship is like a Cybertruck. It’s cold one minute, on fire the next,” Kimmel said of Trump and Musk. “I guess they made up,” he continued. “Musk publicly threatened to drop a big Epstein bomb on Trump, but now I guess they’re cool.”
The Tesla CEO sat down for a dinner this week alongside the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and other guests at the White House. The Tesla relationship with Trump tanked earlier this year, culminating in Musk accusing the president of being in the Epstein files with a bombshell tweet. He later walked back on it.
It’s far from the first time the president has complained about Kimmel, who found himself in the president’s crosshairs earlier this year after Trump took issue with Kimmel’s comments on the shooting death of Charlie Kirk.
In response to Kimmel’s monologue, his show was briefly suspended and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license if Kimmel were not held accountable.
The move sparked significant backlash across the country, with multiple celebrities and media personalities, including Disney stars and all of Kimmel’s fellow late-night hosts, criticizing the suspension.
As Carr was making threats, Trump was posting up a storm, congratulating ABC for cancelling the “ratings challenged” Jimmy Kimmel Live! and urging NBC to do the same to its own late night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
Even prior to Kirk’s death, Trump had his sights set on Kimmel, posting in July, “The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone.”
”It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”
Undeterred by threats of suspension, Kimmel has continued to target Trump in his monologues, including by highlighting Trump being recorded yelling at a female reporter, “Quiet, piggy!”
“Trump is not a happy little meal right now,“ Kimmel said on Tuesday. ”Every time he gets asked about Jeffrey Epstein, he loses his mind.”
“He said ‘Quiet, piggy’ to a reporter and it barely made the news. If a man spoke like that to a female co-worker in a workplace harassment training video, you’d go, ‘Ah, that’s over the top. Nobody would do that.’”
