Jimmy Kimmel Says He ‘Might’ Host 2025 Oscars in Response to Donald Trump Rant

Matt Webb Mitovich
·2 min read
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Donald Trump has weighed in, five weeks later, on Jimmy Kimmel’s recent turn as Oscars host — and his rant has Kimmel tempted to emcee the awards show once again.

On Wednesday morning, amidst his recently commenced criminal trial, Trump fired off a Truth Social post about “Stupid Jimmy Kimmel,” first incorrectly claiming that this year’s Oscars telecast suffered a “big ratings drop” with Kimmel as host. (The show actually drew its largest audience in four years.)

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Trump then wrongly stated that Kimmel — not Al Pacino, the 83-year-old actor looks quite different than the late-night TV veteran — “stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, Picture of the Year.”

Trump closed out his spiel by dubbing Kimmel the “WORST HOST EVER OF THE ONCE VAUNTED ACADEMY AWARDS!” (Caps his.)

Kimmel at first responded to Trump’s post via X, saying, “In fairness to our former President, many stable geniuses confuse me with Al Pacino….”

But Kimmel then took a deeper dive into Trump’s tirade during Wednesday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he fact-checked Trump’s post line by line. After reading Trump’s claim that Kimmel was “the worst host ever,” Kimmel replied, “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. Maybe you can watch on the TV in the rec room at Rikers with all the guys.” (You can watch Kimmel’s full monologue above.)

With a few minutes to kill during this year’s Academy Awards telecast, Kimmel read a Truth Social post from Trump that asked if there has ever been a “worse host” than Kimmel, and said the monologue was “that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not and never can be.”

Kimmel’s on-stage response, directed to Trump at home: “I’m surprised you’re still [up]. Isn’t it past your jail time?” (The audience exploded in applause.)

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, is currently on trial in Manhattan, having been charged with 34 state felony counts of falsification of business records related to a “hush money” payment his attorney made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.)

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