On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel blessedly chose to ignore Sean Hannity’s bizarre threat-laced apology on his Trump Fox News program, seemingly putting an end to their embarrassing feud.
The late-night host instead focused on more pressing matters—namely, President Trump’s “morning rage” tweets over the FBI raid on his personal attorney Michael Cohen’s office. According to reports, the raid was conducted on the order of the public corruption unit of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the feds were searching for “records about payments to two women who claim they had affairs with Mr. Trump,” those of course being porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.
“You know when your Mom goes under your mattress looking for dirty magazines? This is like the FBI version of that,” joked Kimmel. “And the president isn’t pleased—you can actually tell how upset Trump is based on the way he tweets the words ‘witch hunt.’”
Kimmel then showcased the progression of Trump’s “witch hunt” tweets, from last month’s “WITCH HUNT” to Tuesday morning’s “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”
The comedian, who was clearly tickled by the news, continued: “The best part of this ‘witch hunt,’ that he blames on Democrats: The search warrant to raid Trump’s lawyer’s office was approved by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who was appointed by… Donald Trump. That’s right. The witches are hunting themselves now.”
Here, Kimmel made a mistake, as the raid was not approved by interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman, who was recused from the Cohen investigation. Berman was appointed to the post by the Trump administration after the president fired Preet Bharara last March.
Kimmel then added, “I think ‘Witch Hunt’ could be the new ‘MAGA.’ It’s catchy,” before brandishing a red MAGA-style “Witch Hunt” hat, taunting POTUS.
And if the Berman slip-up weren’t enough, Kimmel then drew a parallel between the Mueller investigation and Donald Trump/Stormy Daniels, and the Whitewater investigation and Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky—the point, apparently, being that in both cases an investigation into business dealings led to sex-scandal revelations (and, in Clinton’s case, impeachment proceedings for lying under oath).
“When Bill Clinton was exposed in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, that all came to light because of an investigation into Whitewater, which was a totally different thing—it had nothing to do with sex, it was a real estate investment deal they were looking into, and then it became Monica Lewinsky,” Kimmel explained. “And a similar thing is happening now with the Russians and Stormy Daniels.”
Not really. And while Trump stands accused of creepily dangling a job opportunity on Celebrity Apprentice in order to get Daniels into bed, that is not the same thing as preying on one of your young interns, as Clinton did with Lewinsky. That being said, there are still 19 women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault, and whose voices have been drowned out by the Daniels noise.