Even though President Donald Trump has trashed Jimmy Kimmel and his ABC talk show, the comedian said this week that he would like to have the commander in chief on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“I wouldn’t necessarily be interested in Brendan Carr on the show, but I’d love to have Trump on the show for sure,” Kimmel told Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw during an interview for the outlet’s Screentime event this week.
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He was answering Shaw’s question regarding the president and/or Federal Communications Commission Chair Carr, who praised affiliate networks for pulling Kimmel’s show off the air last month, on the program. Kimmel’s long-running late-night show was pulled from broadcast for about a week after he made comments about the alleged shooter of 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” said Kimmel of Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah man arrested for killing Kirk.
Conservatives, including Vice President JD Vance, have pointed to some evidence that indicates Robinson may have been politically left-leaning in their criticism of Kimmel’s comments. However, Kimmel told Shaw that his comments were “intentionally, and I think maliciously, mischaracterized.”
“It’s important to me as a human, and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” said Kimmel in his first monologue back on air. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”
Upon its return to broadcast, “Kimmy Kimmel Live!” saw its ratings surge. Trump said in a Truth Social post following the return that he couldn’t “believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” and claimed that ABC told the White House the show had been cancelled.
Kimmel has continued to poke fun at Trump in his opening monologues. This week, he joked about new YouGov polling that indicates Kimmel is more popular with the public than Trump.
Still, he didn’t seem shy about potentially having Trump on the show.
“I’ll ask him,” he told Shaw.
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