Jimmy Kimmel was on the air Monday night for the first time since First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump called on ABC to fire him over his ‘joke’ about Mrs. Trump having the “glow of an expectant widow.”
Rather than apologize for his abhorrent and tasteless attempt at humor, he doubled down and remarkably tried to claim it was a joke about the president and first lady’s age difference, not an assassination.
It was a desperate attempt by someone who is clearly scared shitless now because, once again, he has stepped in it and doesn’t want his precious show to be canceled. He needs to be on that stage. It makes him feel important. So, now he is lying and saying that this was about something other than it was.
If you were a leftist who likes Jimmy Kimmel and hates President Trump, now might be a good time to just keep your mouth shut because you too could get dragged down. It is not a time for you to stand up for Kimmel. But his left-wing media and Hollywood friends don’t see it that way.
George Clooney
Exhibit A: George Clooney, who has a god complex. Remember when he was lecturing yours truly about how to do good journalism because he played a journalist in a movie and he thought it made him an expert? Sorry, George, it doesn’t work like that.
He is truly out of touch and the most sanctimonious man in showbiz, as evidenced by the fact that he turned a red carpet he was on Monday night into a chance to give his thoughts on the Kimmel situation. He seems to think the Democrat Party is just waiting for the next word from George Clooney after he wrote his little op-ed about how the Joe Biden he saw at a spring 2024 fundraiser was not the Biden that he had known. He believes he was so brave to speak truth to power.
But let’s not forget that George Clooney didn’t find his courage when Joe Biden could still get away with his lies about his mental health. It was only when we saw the debate meltdown that was undeniable and we all realized how infirm he was, that George Clooney – realizing the Democrats were going to lose – found his backbone.
That’s George Clooney. He is going to lecture me about how to do journalism; he is going to lecture the Democrat Party about the lies that he himself participated in; and now he has something to say about Jimmy Kimmel:
“Jimmy’s a comedian… And I would argue that Karoline Leavitt didn’t mean shots should be fired, but she was making a joke. Fair enough. So I look at that side and go, well, jokes are jokes. But the rhetoric, I think, is a little dangerous and I, we’ve seen a lot lately.”
He is referencing the phrase White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt used before the dinner Saturday night. She was asked what people should expect from President Trump’s speech, and she said there would be “shots fired.” That was not a joke, George. It is what we call an idiom.
She was not joking that the president was going to shoot people. It’s an idiom – a figure of speech meant to connote a certain meaning – here, that the president was going to be launching broadsides against various members of the press for their reporting, which is the bread and butter of what the president is supposed to do at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. What she said is actually not a joke, and the difference is meaningful.
Clooney was trying to say she was yucking it up like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna be shooting the shots,’ same as Jimmy Kimmel, who said Melania “had the expectant glow of a widow.” That is not what happened. Karoline Leavitt used a figure of speech. She wasn’t joking. She was, in good humor, predicting what the president was going to do, which is acceptable and the reason he got invited to the WHCD in the first place. That is not at all the same as what Jimmy Kimmel did, which was a bad taste, classless, borderline call for violence.
Those of us on the right are not really big on canceling comedians, but we watched the left do it repeatedly. Whether it was Roseanne Barr, Shane Gillis, or any of the others. We have had a lot of comedians on The Megyn Kelly Show – from Tim Dillon to Andrew Schulz – who have talked about this. They came for comedy during COVID mania and George Floyd-palooza, and apparently Clooney missed it because he didn’t stand up for anybody back then. He kept his mouth shut as he rolled around in his millions at Lake Como thinking he is better than everybody else.
As long as George wants to speak out and talk about rhetoric, we can do that. Would love to ask him – and if that Variety reporter on the red carpet had any stones, would have – about his $1 million donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group has been indicted for funding so-called hate organizations by paying what it claims were informants.
SPLC is accused of hiring the people who caused the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 with payments from donations it received from people like George. A girl died at that event after being hit by a car. Does George take any responsibility? Does George feel like he should apologize and say he is going to ask for his donation back? God forbid the reporters do their homework and ask him a tough question.
Jake Tapper
But George Clooney is just an actor, so let’s move on to what the so-called ‘serious’ journalists think about Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘joke’ about the first lady wanting her husband, the president of the United States, dead. Here’s Jake Tapper on CNN:
“…It is a big problem of calls for violence and dehumanization, and it’s getting worse. But it is not a problem to be wielded like a cajole to try to stop journalism or jokes. Journalism and jokes are not calls for violence. Calls for violence are calls for violence. And far too many Americans in positions of power and influence are too blasé and to glib about those who make them…”
It is no surprise Tapper is coming to Kimmel’s defense. There are pictures of him at a 2023 party at Jimmy Kimmel’s lodge in Idaho.
My friends, this is why you don’t get too close with the people who you might be covering. It is the reason I say no to virtually every invitation that comes my way. I don’t want to be chummy with these people because the odds are high that I will have to cover them. That includes the Trump administration. As you guys well know, there will be times when I have to criticize them.
Being cordial and friendly at an arm’s length is fine. But hanging out with Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, and Jimmy Fallon at Jimmy Kimmel’s home? I’m sure Jake did defend Jimmy Kimmel super quick because I’m sure he is looking for another invitation to Idaho where he never should have gone in the first place. That way, he might still have your objectivity about the people that are obviously going to come within his coverage ambit as news anchor.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,305 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.