Meryl Streep made her allegiances very clear in the ongoing battle between President Trump and Jimmy Kimmel.
“How are you?” Streep, 76, intently asked Kimmel, 58, immediately after sitting down on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday night. The actress was clearly referencing the late-night host’s ongoing feud with Trump, 79, over a joke where he said Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.”
“I’m holding up,” Kimmel responded, laughing.
“You’re a prince. You are a Knight Templar,” the perennial Oscar winner declared, pumping her fist and gritting her teeth. “You’re carrying the banner of freedom of the press.”
Since Kimmel delivered his searing mock White House Correspondents’ Association dinner monologue last week, Trump has blamed the host’s “call to violence” for prompting the event’s shooting.
“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 posted on Truth Social earlier that same day.
“If incompetently presiding over not just one of, but the lowest ratings in history is the reason I should be fired, we should both be out of a job, because you’re not doing too good either,” Kimmel replied in his Thursday monologue.
Kimmel, who is currently among the most-watched late-night hosts on TV, claimed that his misunderstood joke was a dig at the presidential couple’s 24-year age gap, which Trump himself joked about earlier this week.
“I’m just trying to do some jokes,” Kimmel told Streep.
“We all depend on you,” she replied.
“And the world is listening. I’ve just come from around the world,” she said, referring to her global press tour for The Devil Wears Prada 2.
After Kimmel was called out by both Donald and Melania Trump over the misconstrued joke, the comedian has been threatened with cancellation—the second occurrence in just eight months.
Two days after the president called out Kimmel, the Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Brendan Carr, launched a “nearly unprecedented” challenge against Disney’s broadcasting licenses.
Though Carr, 47, has claimed the early renewal—which is at minimum two years ahead of schedule—was entirely unrelated to the president’s cancellation demands, his own commissioners have called him out.
“This is clearly a pretext. I mean, give me a break,” Anna Gomez, the FCC’s sole Democrat, said after Carr’s remarks to the press. “This is just another part of the pattern of harassment and retaliation in order to bend Disney to this administration’s will.”
The last time Trump demanded Kimmel’s cancellation, ABC suspended the host for nearly a week in September. Though Carr didn’t take direct action in the fall, he made direct threats against ABC’s licenses, pushing them to enact the suspension.
Kimmel, however, has taken the renewed threats in stride, only continuing to mock Trump further.
During his Thursday monologue, Kimmel ridiculed the president’s early morning social media tirade against Iran. The late-night host offered Trump their own ceasefire deal.
“Send a delegation. Send JD Vance and Jared [Kushner],” Kimmel told Trump. “Let’s see if we can come up with a ceasefire agreement.”
“This could be good for both of us. I get to keep my job, you get to end your eleventh war,” he concluded. “What do you say? We can help each other.”
