Jimmy Kimmel’s “spreading polio” dig at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got fact-checked for funniness by Fox Business earlier this week. Their ruling: polio isn’t funny.
Kimmel, naturally, had some follow-up questions.
On Wednesday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel revisited the social media exchange that started it all: Kennedy shared a post criticizing Kimmel and “liberal comedy,” misspelled “nadir” as “nader,” and Kimmel replied, “It’s ‘Nadir’ Dummy. Now get back to spreading polio.”
The exchange made its way to Fox Business, where a panel framed Kimmel’s response as proof that Kennedy had touched a nerve.
“When you’re that sensitive, maybe you recognize there’s some truth in it,” one panelist said.
“Oh, absolutely,” replied Jillian Michaels, the former Biggest Loser trainer turned conservative media commentator.
Kimmel paused the clip there.
“Oh! What do you think, crazy lady from The Biggest Loser 2012?” he said. “What do you think, Jillian? How did it come to this? Trump raided that network to fill his cabinet positions, now there’s nobody left to be on it.”
The Fox Business panel then turned to Kimmel’s joke itself, with another panelist arguing that his response “exemplifies why he is not funny.”
“He, like, thinks it’s an own to highlight a spelling error,” she said. “And then uses polio as kind of the joke. Like polio is not funny.”
She did, however, offer some alternate material.
“Chicken pox is kind of funny,” she said. “Shingles, I’ve had shingles. Shingles is funny.”
Kimmel seemed happy to workshop the premise.
“All right, okay. Well, that’s helpful,” he said. “At least shingles is funny. What about chlamydia? Is chlamydia funny? Chlamydia’s funny, right? Trench mouth? See, we can work together. Let’s punch this up.”
Watch the full clip at the top of this post.
