Donald Trump couldn’t let Jimmy Kimmel have the last laugh.
Just after midnight on Thursday, the president unloaded on the late-night host in a rambling email to supporters—before turning a personal grudge into a full-blown fundraising pitch. The subject line: “Get Trump out of your mouth!”
The message, sent to his “MAGA Blitz” list, quickly devolved into a familiar tirade—this time aimed squarely at late-night TV.
“Did you see it?” Trump, 79, opened, referencing Kimmel’s show before launching into a string of insults. He branded the host a “ratings-starved hack” and mocked what he claimed were “terrible numbers, just total disaster numbers.”
But the email wasn’t just about Kimmel—it was about rallying Trump’s base. After tearing into the comedian, Trump pivoted to his supporters, warning that Kimmel’s show was “trying to mock you and our movement.” The email insisted the host’s relevance depends entirely on him: “Without Trump, HE’D HAVE NO CAREER AT ALL!”
Trump swiftly pivoted his message with a call to action. “I want to send a message so loud it shakes the foundations of Hollywood,” he wrote, urging “millions of MAGA patriots” to step up and prove the movement’s strength. The pitch ended with a fundraising hook, offering access to an “exclusive” 2026 MAGA membership for those who joined the effort.
Trump’s fixation on Kimmel is nothing new. The ABC host has spent months hammering the president on-air, including a fiery segment where he called Trump out over comments about two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis last month. After Trump dismissed the victims as no “angels,” Kimmel unloaded.
“How dare you weigh in on what they were and what they weren’t?” he said, before telling the president to “keep your stupid thoughts in your diaper where they belong.”
The monologue didn’t stop there. Kimmel went on to mock Trump’s intelligence, saying his brain is “smaller than one of an Oompa Loompa’s balls.”
He continued his digs, dragging Trump over his past ties to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. A January tranche of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice features Trump’s name over 5,300 times.
“Jeffrey Epstein was your best friend,” Kimmel said in the episode. “So maybe leave angels out of the conversation.”
The escalating back-and-forth highlights a long-running feud between Trump and late-night television—a relationship that has only grown more hostile during his second term.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at comedians who criticize him, hinting previously that Kimmel could be “next” after other late-night shakeups, including CBS’s decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
After making controversial comments following the death of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, Kimmel’s show was temporarily pulled amid backlash fueled by outrage among Trump allies. Trump seized on the moment, saying, Kimmel “should have been fired a long time ago.”
Even as Trump mobilizes his base against the late-night host, Kimmel is leaning further into the fight. The host is set to headline a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this week.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Kimmel’s representatives at ABC for comment.
