Compared to Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel is hardly the most politically outspoken late-night host. But President Donald Trump’s recent defense of white supremacy has clearly gotten under his skin. And at least some of his viewers are not happy about it.
On Tuesday night, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host pleaded with Trump’s supporters to cut 45 loose. “It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse,” Kimmel told them. “Now, he does need to go.”
“Last night on our show, if you missed it, I had a message for those who voted for Donald Trump,” he told viewers on Wednesday “I explained that I understood why they did it but encouraged those of them who deep down feel like now they look back and made a mistake, to just admit it and move on.”
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“I have to say, I think it might have worked,” he continued. “I really think I made a breakthrough. And I base that on the thoughtful responses I got on Twitter and Facebook.”
With that, Kimmel read a sampling of the mean tweets he received including one that read, “Why don’t you go somewhere else like a different country if you don’t like our president and stop your crying on TV, snowflake.” The host famously cried on his show while discussing his baby son’s nearly-fatal medical problems.
Another person tweeted, “Jimmy, nobody cares what you think. You sound like a whining baby. Does baby Jimmy want his bottle?”
The comments on Facebook weren’t much better, despite the fact that users there have to include their full names: “Jimmy Kimmel is the worst talk show host and most stupid person I have ever seen. I watched President Trump today and stupid kimmel took what the president said all wrong and is turning it around to hurt Trump. Stupid Kimmel as far as I’m concerned is a racist promoting racism. His sorry-ass show needs to be canceled.”
“I want to thank everyone for the feedback,” Kimmel said, sarcastically. “And it just goes to show you, if you want to know where people are coming from and talk to them like human beings, they will open up. You just have to communicate.”
