{"id":370768,"date":"2025-12-26T07:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370768\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T07:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:15:07","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-rails-against-trump-in-alternative-christmas-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370768\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Rails Against Trump in Alternative Christmas Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJimmy Kimmel<\/a> delivered a politically charged alternative Christmas message on the U.K.\u2019s Channel 4 on Thursday, using the platform to rail against Donald Trump and warn that \u201ctyranny is booming\u201d in America under a president who \u201cthinks he is our king.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy country\u2019s president would like to shut me up because I don\u2019t adore him in the way he likes to be adored,\u201d Kimmel said during the address. \u201cThe American government made a threat against me and the company I work for. And all of a sudden, we were off the air. But then, you know what happened? A Christmas miracle happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJimmy Kimmel Live! was swiftly brought back<\/a> on the air after being briefly suspended by ABC parent company Disney in September. The show was pulled following comments Kimmel made in a monologue about the political firestorm that followed the shocking murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk over the summer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe longtime late-night host was invited by Channel 4 to speak as part of its annual Alternative Christmas Message, now in its 32nd year. Since 1993, figures from across politics and popular culture \u2014 including former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and whistleblower Edward Snowden \u2014 have addressed the British public in the broadcast, which serves as a counterpoint to the monarch\u2019s traditional Christmas Day address.<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel \u201chas found himself on the frontline of America\u2019s battle over free speech,\u201d a Channel 4 spokesperson said in a statement explaining the broadcaster\u2019s choice this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThursday\u2019s address may further inflame an ongoing war of words between the president and the comic, which escalated after the Oscars in March 2024, when host Kimmel mocked Trump onstage over a social media post criticizing his performance as ceremony host.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump, then campaigning in what would become a successful 2024 reelection bid, responded by doubling down on his attacks. The feud continued as Kimmel mocked Trump\u2019s policies, actions, and public statements, while the candidate \u2014 and later president \u2014 fired back online. It ultimately culminated in Kimmel\u2019s suspension, which was reversed quickly following a public outcry over Disney\u2019s decision, a sequence of events Kimmel recounted in his address.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMillions and millions of people stood up and said, \u2018No, this is not acceptable,\u2019\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cPeople who never watched my show, people who were on record saying they hate my show, spoke out. They marched. They did this all to support the right to freedom of expression. And because so many people spoke out, we came back. Our show came back stronger than ever. We won, the president lost, and now I\u2019m back on the air every night giving the most powerful politician on Earth a right and richly deserved bollocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Dec. 19, the host grew tearful <\/a>during his monologue at the top of his last show of 2025, reflecting on what he acknowledged was a difficult year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis has been a strange year. It\u2019s been a hard year,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some lows. We\u2019ve had some highs. For me, maybe more than any year of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRead the full text of Kimmel\u2019s Channel 4 address below.<\/p>\n

\n\tHi I\u2019m Jimmy Kimmel,<\/p>\n

\n\tI have no idea if you know who I am, but I was asked to deliver this year\u2019s Alternative Christmas Message (which I\u2019ve heard is a big deal) so I hope you do, but if not I host what you call a chat show (we call it a talk show) in what you call the colonies, I think? I honestly have no idea what\u2019s going on over there.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0do know what\u2019s going on over here though, and I can tell you that, from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou may have read in your colourful newspapers my country\u2019s President would like to shut me up because I don\u2019t adore him in the way he likes to be adored. The American government made a threat against me and the company I work for, and all of a sudden we were off the air. But then, you know what happened? A Christmas miracle happened. Well, it was September, it was a September miracle. But the holiday does seem to come earlier and earlier every year, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\n\tMillions and millions of people stood up and said: \u2018No, this is not acceptable\u2019. People who never watched my show, people who were on record saying they hate my show spoke out, they marched, they did this all to support the right to a free expression of speech and because so many people spoke out, we came back. Our show came back stronger than ever. We won, the President lost and now I\u2019m back on the air every night givin\u2019 the most powerful politician on earth a right and richly deserved bollocking. That\u2019s a word, right, I used it properly?<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd the reason I\u2019m telling you this story is because maybe you\u2019re thinking: \u2018Oh a government silencing its critics is something that happens in places like Russia, or North Korea, or LA, not the UK\u2019. Well, that\u2019s what we thought and now we\u2019ve got King Donny the Eighth calling for executions. It happens fast.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou know it\u2019s funny we Americans are very proud of not having a king. It\u2019s kind of why we left. Earlier this year tens of millions of us marched at protests called No Kings. You had some of those there. And just for the record we have nothing against your king. I mean I don\u2019t know if you know this, but his son lives here. We just \u2013 well some of us \u2013 just have a problem with the guy who thinks he is our king.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel delivered a politically charged alternative Christmas message on the U.K.\u2019s Channel 4 on Thursday, using the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,17114,11575,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-370768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}