{"id":36623,"date":"2025-09-25T06:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/36623\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T06:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:54:08","slug":"kimmel-nods-to-big-ratings-heckles-trump-as-an-80s-movie-style-bully-in-second-post-suspension-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/36623\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimmel nods to big ratings, heckles Trump as an \u201c80s-movie-style bully\u201d in second post-suspension show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Jimmy Kimmel opened his second night back on the late-night stage by taking on President Donald Trump\u2019s latest attacks against him and his network ABC, describing the president as a \u201c80s-movie-style bully.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In his opening monologue, Kimmel performed a sentence-by-sentence roast of Trump\u2019s social media post from Tuesday, in which the president accused the comedian of being \u201cyet another arm\u201d of the Democratic party and threatened \u201cto test ABC\u201d<\/a> as airing content tantamount to \u201ca major Illegal Campaign Contribution.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOnly Donald Trump would try to prove he wasn\u2019t threatening ABC by threatening ABC,\u201d Kimmel quipped Wednesday night.\n <\/p>\n

\n Kimmel defended his own routine heckling of the president, echoing his Tuesday night return monologue<\/a> in which he urged the public to stand up to Trump\u2019s threats and \u201canti-American\u201d attacks on free speech.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor those who think I go too hard on Donald Trump, to the point where there are still a lot of people who think I should be pulled off the air\u2026I want to explain: I talk about Trump more than anything because he\u2019s a bully. I don\u2019t like bullies \u2013 I played the clarinet in high school.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n Wednesday\u2019s show was the second since \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d was yanked off the air for nearly a week after Kimmel sparked a controversy<\/a> with comments about activist Charlie Kirk\u2019s suspected killer.\n <\/p>\n

\n Disney\u2019s ABC first announced Kimmel\u2019s show was suspended \u201cindefinitely\u201d following conservative outcry over Kimmel\u2019s assertion that the \u201cMAGA gang\u201d was \u201cdesperately trying\u201d to characterize the suspect \u201cas anything other than one of them.\u201d Kimmel also claimed that Trump loyalists were \u201cdoing everything they can to score political points\u201d from the assassination.\n <\/p>\n

\n After Kimmel\u2019s comments were publicized by right-wing websites and TV shows, the Trump-aligned FCC chairman Brendan Carr called it \u201cthe sickest conduct possible\u201d and suggested that the FCC could move to revoke ABC affiliate licenses. Carr later downplayed his role in the Kimmel drama, casting it as a dispute between local station owners and the national network.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Tuesday, Kimmel delivered a powerful and emotional comeback, championing free speech and taking jabs at Trump and at those trying to censor his show.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis show is not important,\u201d Kimmel told viewers. \u201cWhat\u2019s important is that we live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He also addressed the remarks that led ABC to suspend his show, saying it was not his \u201cintention to make light of the murder of a young man.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n ABC said Tuesday\u2019s return show attracted record-breaking ratings<\/a> \u2013 with tens of millions seeing Kimmel\u2019s monologue across the ABC broadcast, YouTube and social media platforms \u2013 something Kimmel acknowledged Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYou know a lot of people watched our show last night,\u201d Kimmel said during Wednesday\u2019s monologue, though noting it was seen by \u201cmost of the country, not all of the country.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Kimmel was alluding to the ongoing pre-emption of his show by Sinclair and Nexstar, two major TV station groups that together own at least 64 ABC affiliates in nearly 30 states.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe are still not on the air on a number of ABC affiliates, including Seattle, Portland, Washington, DC, Nashville, New Orleans, St Louis, Salt Lake City, about 30 more,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still, Kimmel\u2019s return Tuesday prompted criticisms from many, including Vice President JD Vance, who said the late-night host had failed to apologize for his comments about Kirk.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI watched it and look, in some ways it was kind of kind-hearted,\u201d Vance said in an interview with NewsNation\u2019s Reshad Hudson. \u201cOn the other hand, he didn\u2019t actually say sorry to Charlie Kirk or his family.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel opened his second night back on the late-night stage by taking on President Donald Trump\u2019s latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-36623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}