Jimmy Kimmel Apologizes For Video, But Still Mocks Mike Pence’s “Empty” PR Stunt

Tom Tapp
·2 min read

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Jimmy Kimmel didn’t quite get Mike Pence’s humor. Turns out, Kimmel was also missing something else: the complete video.

The host of Jimmy Kimmel Live used his monologue on Thursday night to rip a clip that seemed to show Vice President Pence delivering empty boxes of personal protective equipment to a Virginia nursing home.

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In the video, Pence makes one trip from a delivery van to the facility’s front door and then asks, before his second trip, if he could “carry the empty ones…Just for the camera.”

But the clip does not show the remainder of Pence’s photo op which, when viewed, makes it clear that he was actually employing a little vice presidential humor.

The Biden campaign’s Deputy National Press Secretary, Matt Hill, also fell for the incomplete footage.

Later, Pence’s director of campaign communications weighed in, pointing out that the video was incomplete. Jon Thompson called Kimmel’s monologue “absolute garbage,” saying that the comedian should have shown “the full clip from CSPAN, not the one he selectively edited.”

Here is the full clip:

Kimmel eventually corrected himself and tweeted an apology — sort of — saying:

it would appear that @vp was joking about carrying empty boxes for a staged publicity stunt. The full video reveals that he was carrying full boxes for a staged publicity stunt. My apologies. I know how dearly this administration values truth.

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