Jimmy Kimmel’s fellow late-night hosts say they know why Donald Trump keeps attacking him. The president might just want to be his friend.
John Oliver and Seth Meyers joined Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in Brooklyn on Thursday and compared notes on drawing the 80-year-old president’s ire. Oliver said Kimmel’s name repeatedly surfaced during audience questions at a monthly comedy show he hosted with Meyers at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
The audience members asked them what it felt like to be disliked by the president.
Oliver told Kimmel: “And we always say as long as you’re on the air, we’re fine. We’re OK… We are fully supportive. We are fully behind you the way that we’re fully behind a bulletproof vest.”
Kimmel asked why Trump directed so much of his anger at him.
“Other than the fact you don’t like him, we think he would want to hang out with you. I think he sees us as a couple of dorks, and even if we were fans of his, he would have no respect for us,” Meyers said.
Meyers then slipped into an impression of Trump admiring Kimmel: “I think he has a pizza oven… you know he knows Larry David and Conan? He’s got a lot of famous friends. His parties sound awesome.”
Back as himself, Meyers said: “He just looks at us, and he’s like, ‘Ugh.’”
Kimmel pointed out that Trump “never seems to get upset” with Daily Show host Jon Stewart, though he occasionally takes aim at Meyers. Kimmel suggested Trump might gravitate toward traditional broadcast channels, joking: “I think you are past his bedtime.”
Trump’s public attacks on Kimmel go way back. Last September, Disney took his show off the air briefly after Kimmel made comments about the MAGA reaction Charlie Kirk’s death that drew threats of a shutdown by the FCC commissioner. In April, after Kimmel joked about his marriage to first lady Melania Trump during a mock roast, the president demanded on Truth Social that ABC fire him.
Kimmel joked at the time that the first lady had the “glow” of an “expectant widow,” poking fun at the president’s age and about his health issues, frequently documented by the Daily Beast.
“When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television? People are angry. It better be soon!!!” Trump wrote.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
