{"id":628664,"date":"2026-09-18T15:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628664\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:22:15","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-on-mitch-mcconnells-return-theyre-just-wheeling-him-around-like-a-statue-in-a-wax-museum-late-night-tv-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628664\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel on Mitch McConnell\u2019s return: \u2018They\u2019re just wheeling him around like a statue in a wax museum\u2019 | Late-night TV roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late-night hosts reacted to Mitch McConnell<\/a>\u2019s return to the Senate<\/a> after a months-long absence and the escalating costs of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s never-ending war with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Kimmel<\/p>\n

On Thursday evening, Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> offered a less than stellar review for Mitch McConnell\u2019s long-awaited return to the Senate this week after a prolonged hospitalization. Appearing before reporters this week, the 84-year-old former majority leader neither spoke nor seemed to have much idea what was happening; during a vote this week on the latest farm bill, he was told to say \u201caye\u201d when called.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis poor guy, he seems to have no idea where he is, what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cI\u2019m not even sure if he knows who he is at this point. They\u2019re just wheeling him around like a statue in a wax museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The host then played a clip of the Kentucky senator appearing mute, frozen and dazed as a reporter asked him, \u201cAnything fun this weekend?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything fun this weekend?!\u201d Kimmel laughed. \u201cAnd this is one of the people we\u2019re relying on to help navigate AI,\u201d which has been constantly in the news this week after executives from the Silicon Valley\u2019s top companies called for more regulation of their own technology.<\/p>\n

Prominent figures such as OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman and Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei \u201chave been sounding the alarm about this technology they have created\u201d, Kimmel explained. \u201cIt\u2019s like when the dinosaurs took over Jurassic Park.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Anthropic executive warned<\/a> there\u2019s about a 10% chance that AI could end all human life, \u201cbut don\u2019t worry, because President Trump has assured us that this threat to our existence is nothing more than a hoax\u201d, Kimmel laughed. \u201cHe says \u2018the robots will not be taking over the world\u2019, which is exactly what the president says at the beginning of the movie where the robots take over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Wall Street Journal, senior administration officials have gathered almost daily for months to try to sway Trump to release more guidelines on AI safety. \u201cThey\u2019re calling it \u2018Operation: Take Away Grandpa\u2019s iPad\u2019,\u201d Kimmel joked. \u201cAlmost every day they get together to talk about AI and develop plans for how to keep us safe, which they then bring to the president, who then tells them about his uncle who worked at MIT, eats his lunch and falls asleep, and that\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kimmel had a proposal: \u201cIf you want him to take the threat of AI seriously, it\u2019s real simple \u2013 tell him ChatGPT is about to release the Trump-Epstein files. I\u2019ll bet $100 he\u2019ll get Pandora\u2019s stuff right back in that box.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Show<\/p>\n

And on The Daily Show, Michael Kosta checked in on the latest with Trump\u2019s war with Iran. \u201cWhen Trump launched this war back in March, he promised us it would take just a few weeks and that it would cost us nothing,\u201d he noted. \u201cAnd that promise went just as perfectly as all his other promises.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a recent congressional budget office estimate, the war has cost American taxpayers an extra $38bn, with gas and diesel prices still on the rise. \u201cAnd the cost is even more when you consider all the military bases we have to repair, all the equipment we have to fix, all the Iran war championship T-shirt merch we had to throw away,\u201d Kosta joked. \u201cSo I\u2019m just a little confused. Donald Trump has assured many times that we\u2019ve already won the war, so why are gas prices still going up?\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be, in part, due to new Iranian strikes in the strait of Hormuz, which has been contested now for months. \u201cHow is this still happening?!\u201d Kosta wondered. \u201cWe\u2019re the United States \u2013 we almost beat the Taliban! I know we can handle one strait \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

Except as of this week, in a dramatic escalation in the war, Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen threatened to take control the Bab al-Mandab strait, another crucial route for Saudi oil and global trade. \u201cWait, there\u2019s a second strait now? This war is like a telenovela,\u201d Kosta joked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m starting to think it\u2019s bad that our entire economy is built on extracting oil from incredibly narrow waterways in the world\u2019s most volatile region,\u201d he deadpanned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-night hosts reacted to Mitch McConnell\u2019s return to the Senate after a months-long absence and the escalating costs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-628664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}