The Trump administration’s attempt to silence Jimmy Kimmel appears to have backfired. The host’s broadcast return to late-night television on Tuesday brought in 6.2 million views, four times his usual audience, according to data from Nielsen. Meanwhile, Kimmel’s monologue on YouTube has reached 21 million views and counting, making it his most-watched monologue of all time on the platform.
The comedian took a moment to thank the president for his efforts on Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! “It’s been a tumultuous week. Even though we’re still being preempted in 60 American cities, on Tuesday, we had our second highest rated show in almost 23 years on the air,” said Kimmel. “The monologue from Tuesday night has more than 21 million views just on YouTube alone. And I want to say we couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. President. Thank you very much.”
Last week, ABC abruptly suspended Kimmel’s long-running series, citing an “ill-timed and thus insensitive” monologue in which the comedian criticized the right for trying to “score political points” off the murder of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel did not issue a statement in the days that followed, but Hollywood raised its voice on his behalf with more than 400 artists, actors, and entertainment figures pushing back against “government threats to our freedom of speech.”
Disney reached a formal decision to bring Kimmel back to the ABC airwaves a week after his indefinite suspension. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” the Walt Disney Co. said in a statement.
Donald Trump responded to the announcement of Kimmel’s comeback with a rant on Truth Social, declaring that he intends to sue the late-night show’s network. Naturally, the host acknowledged the president’s tantrum the day after, describing Trump as an “Eighties movie-style bully” and delivering a line-by-line takedown of his Truth Social post.
Elsewhere on Thursday’s monologue, Kimmel poked fun at “the escalator that tried to viciously attack the president this week,” referring to Trump’s public fuming over a malfunctioning escalator at the U.N. General Assembly. “Have you been enjoying Trump’s most ridiculous distraction from the Epstein trials?” said Kimmel on his show, before rolling clips of conservative media bemoaning the president’s transportation fiasco. “You know what another word for frozen escalator is? Stairs,” quipped Kimmel. “Is [Trump] the strongest, healthiest, most physically powerful man-beast ever elected president or a brittle-bone grandma with osteoporosis?”
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