Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert Fire Back at Donald Trump Over Renewed Oscars Criticism

Kevin Dolak
·3 min read
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Former President Donald Trump was roundly mocked on late night television for an error-laden social media post in which he confused Jimmy Kimmel and Al Pacino as the presenter of this year’s best picture Oscar.

On Wednesday, the presumptive Republican nominee for president drew some attention away from his hush money trial, which is now in the jury selection process in Manhattan, with a post on his Truth Social platform in which he reignited a feud with Kimmel, who hosted the Oscar ceremony March 10, more than five weeks ago.

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In part, Trump posted: “Stupid Jimmy Kimmel, who still hasn’t recovered from his horrendous performance and big ratings drop as Host of The Academy Awards, especially when he showed he suffered from TDS, commonly known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, to the entire World by reading on air my TRUTH about how bad a job he was doing that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, ‘Picture of the Year.’”

Trump’s post was full of multiple factual errors, including the confusion of Kimmel with Pacino, a misunderstanding of what led the four-time Oscars host to read a prior post from Trump during the ceremony, and stating that the ratings for this year’s awards show declined with Kimmel as host. All of this made ample fodder for Kimmel during his Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue Wednesday.

“He’s not just wrong, but maybe, ‘We should be worried about him’ wrong. Like, ‘Maybe we should take the keys away from Grandpa’ wrong.”

In addition to noting that Pacino presented the top award at the ceremony, Kimmel also pointed out that the ratings for this year’s Oscars ceremony went up this year. An average of 19.5 million viewers tuned in to watch, according to Nielsen data — this is a 4 percent increase over the 18.8 million who tuned in for the 95th annual Academy Awards in 2023. This led Kimmel to hint at his potential next hosting gig.

“I don’t know. That must be why they asked me to host the show again next year, which I wasn’t planning to do but now I might,” he added, then addressing Trump: “Maybe — you know what — maybe you can watch on the TV in the rec room at Rikers with all the guys.”

Kimmel hasn’t officially signed on to host next year’s Oscars, and speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of this year’s show about a potential fifth time emceeing the ceremony, he said, “I would be very foolish to make that decision now, or really anytime before next September.”

On The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the host also got big laughs out of Trump’s post during his own opening monologue, in which he noted that the former president is dwelling on a feud from five weeks ago amid his presidential campaign while facing multiple indictments.

“In the category of outstanding achievement in syphilitic ramble in a social media post. The winner is …” Colbert joked, later adding: “I look forward to his new campaign slogan, ‘Trump 2024: They gave it to Green Book?’”

Colbert then defended his fellow late night host from Trump’s ongoing online ire.

“Also, you keep my friend Jimmy Kimmel’s name out of your weird, little, wet mouth,” he said.

Thursday is the third day of jury selection in Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan. In the proceedings that mark the first criminal trial of a former president, he is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal.

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