Jimmy Kimmel is leaning into his latest standoff with Donald Trump.
After the president again called on ABC to fire the late-night host Thursday morning, Kimmel responded with a monologue that opened with a bit of domestic breaking news: his wife and Jimmy Kimmel Live! executive producer Molly McNearney waking him up to tell him Trump had posted about him again.
“This morning, I woke up to my wife shooting video with her phone,” Kimmel told viewers Thursday night. “She was shooting me to let me know the president gave me another shout-out today.”
He then played the video of McNearney informing her half-awake husband, “Donald Trump wants you fired again.”
“I haven’t even been fired once,” Kimmel replied. “How can I be fired again?”
Trump’s latest post, which Kimmel read on-air, called him “seriously unfunny” and accused him of presiding over “one of the lowest rated shows on television,” before warning: “People are angry. It better be soon!!!”
Kimmel’s reply was immediate: “Or what?” he asked, as the audience booed.
The host then turned Trump’s ratings insult back on the president, flashing a headline about Trump’s approval rating slipping to a new low.
“If incompetently presiding over not just one of but the lowest rating in history is the reason I should be fired,” Kimmel said, “then we should both be out of a job.”
“Isn’t there a war dragging on?” Kimmel asked. “Imagine if FDR had taken to the airwaves during the Battle of the Bulge to complain about a Little Orphan Annie comic strip that he didn’t like.”
“Trump has three wars going on right now,” he added. “Iranians, Ukrainians, and comedians.”
Kimmel closed the segment by pitching Trump on a cease-fire.
“We don’t have to meet face to face. I know you’re busy. Send a delegation,” Kimmel said. “Send J.D. Vance and Jared [Kushner] and your friend the real estate broker. We’ll sit down… We can meet in a neutral location like Pakistan, or I don’t know, Van Nuys.”
“This could be good for both of us,” he continued. “I get to keep my job, you get to end your 11th war. What do you say?”
The bit ended with a mock “Trump-approved” promo for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, billing the show as “seriously unfunny” and urging viewers to “tune in fast before he is fired like a dog.”
Watch Kimmel’s full response to Trump at the top of this post.
there’s just no way for Trump to get over on a comedian with these exchanges