{"id":394968,"date":"2026-04-24T05:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394968\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:58:07","slug":"no-comedian-at-the-correspondents-dinner-jimmy-kimmel-steps-in-from-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/394968\/","title":{"rendered":"No Comedian at the Correspondents’ Dinner? Jimmy Kimmel Steps In\u2014From Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> didn\u2019t get the call from the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner<\/a> this year\u2014but he went ahead and headlined it anyway.<\/p>\n

With no featured comedian booked for the 2026 dinner, Kimmel staged his own full-scale WHCD-style roast on Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a> Thursday night, and nothing was off limits\u2014from the president\u2019s appearance (\u201cWho did your make-up? Kraft Singles?\u201d), to his energy policies (\u201cThat will be your legacy\u2026breaking wind and passing gas\u201d), to his association with Jeffrey Epstein\u2014one of several topics that drew gasps as much as laughs.<\/p>\n

Dubbing his imagined event the \u201cAll-American White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner\u201d\u2014a nod to this year\u2019s Kid Rock<\/a>-headlined MAGA-friendly Super Bowl halftime show\u2014Kimmel held court for a full eight minutes.<\/p>\n

He targeted not only Donald Trump<\/a>, but also First Lady Melania Trump<\/a>, Vice President J.D. Vance<\/a>, advisor Stephen Miller<\/a>, and FCC Chair Brendan Carr<\/a>, along with a rogues\u2019 gallery of MAGA-world figures. Cutaway gags helped sell the illusion of Kimmel addressing a packed ballroom of political elites.<\/p>\n

The set leaned into the very dynamic the real correspondents dinner has increasingly struggled with in recent years: whether the sitting president\u2014and the broader political climate\u2014can withstand the tradition of biting political comedy.<\/p>\n

The segment closed with a mock award presentation, as Kimmel crowned Trump the \u201cBurger King of Comedy Gold Award\u201d winner\u2014which certainly would not be the first made-up award Trump received this year. It was one final jab that doubled as a meta-commentary on the night\u2019s premise: if the president won\u2019t show up to be roasted, late-night will bring the roast to him.<\/p>\n

Watch Kimmel\u2019s complete alternative White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner roast at the top of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel didn\u2019t get the call from the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner this year\u2014but he went ahead and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[28190,65,156,13315,688,7182,3723,111,139,69,60365,437],"class_list":["post-394968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-brendan-carr","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-j-d-vance","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","tag-melania-trump","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-stephen-miller","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}