In his first episode back after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Jimmy Kimmel tried his best to lift his viewers’ spirits. It wasn’t easy. As Kimmel’s emotional monologue made clear, he was deeply disappointed and heartbroken over the results.
Kimmel first expressed this disappointment with a light opening skit where his sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez walked in on him packing his things.
“I can’t stay for another four years of this,” Kimmel told him. “He said he has a list of enemies. You think I’m not on that list?”
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Guillermo urged him to stay, however, telling Kimmel, “We need you. We need you to help us get through this.” Kimmel agreed to stay, only to find out that Guillermo himself was happily heading off to Mexico.
In Kimmel’s monologue, he lamented, “We had the choice between a prosecutor and a criminal, and we chose the criminal to be president of the United States. More than half of this country voted for the criminal who’s planning to pardon himself for his crimes.”
Kimmel soon added, “Let’s be honest. It was a terrible night last night. It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hardworking immigrants who make this country go.”
He started to tear up a little, but kept going: “For health care, for employment, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO… And democracy and decency.”
“And it was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him,” Kimmel continued. “And guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him, too. You just don’t realize it yet.”
He admitted that he struggled to think of something positive to say, but offered this: “We’ve been through this once before, and yes, this time it is probably going to be worse, maybe a lot worse, but I also think that maybe we will look back and realize that in the long run, this is what we needed to wake us up. Maybe the people who care so much about him need to find out how little he cares about them.”
Kimmel added, “I hope his next unpredictable act is to reach across the aisle and do something positive… The bar’s low. He has an opportunity to win us over.”
“Remember when he took office the first time?” Kimmel said. “He started working on infrastructure with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi until the other Republicans said, ‘hey, hey, we don’t do that. We don’t work together.’ Maybe this time he’ll shock us and actually do some productive things.”
“He won’t, probably, but he could,” said Kimmel. “Or maybe the only good part of all this is he can’t run again in 2028.”
