Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel all went live after the annual State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Only one of the late-night hosts dared to criticize President Donald Trump for giving Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his address.
“Tonight, as you saw, the president stood before a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of the Confederacy—I mean, Union,” Kimmel said at the top of his monologue. Calling the speech “self-congratulatory,” he added, “In the first 10 minutes, Trump used the word ‘I’ more than all of LensCrafters does in a whole year.”
“But in fairness to the president, why should we expect him to be able to deliver the State of the Union when he doesn’t even know the state of Kansas City?” Kimmel added. The host also addressed the moment Trump denied a handshake from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by joking, “The first time Trump decides not to touch a woman, it’s there.”
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“Trump promised he would ‘always protect patients with pre-existing conditions,’ which is something I will definitely remind him of when he most certainly does exactly the opposite of that,” Kimmel said. “It really is brazen when he says things and then just does the opposite of them.”
Rather than list the many reasons why Limbaugh, who just this week announced he has stage four lung cancer, might not deserve the “highest civilian honor” in the country, Kimmel simply pointed out that “today is Rosa Parks Day and this is a medal they gave Rosa Parks.”
“Tonight, Rush Limbaugh got it,” he added.
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