Jimmy Kimmel had Scandal on his mind as he started his monologue Thursday night. On the occasion of the series finale of the acclaimed Shonda Rhimes political drama, the host welcomed the entire cast onto his show for a postmortem.
“Scandal premiered in 2012, back when the idea that a president would need a crisis manager seemed fantastic,” Kimmel said. “That is obviously not the case anymore.”
“Trump getting elected while you’re writing a fictional show about the White House really isn’t fair, because it’s like what would happen to Game of Thrones if they suddenly discovered that there are dragons flying around,” he added. “This is the first time a TV show ended because the world jumped the shark instead of the other way around.”
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Later, Kimmel turned to “our own real-life White House drama,” including the fear among Trump advisers that his lawyer Michael Cohen will “flip” on the president. “Does this look like the face of someone who’s going to crack under pressure from federal investigators?” he asked his audience, showing the photo of a beleaguered-looking Cohen. “I don’t think so. He looks like a dog that got caught peeing on the rug.”
“But who knows,” he continued. “Michael Cohen once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. And Robert Mueller was like, ‘Oh, great, stand right there, you want a cigarette or anything?’”
It is the concern among Trump confidants that Cohen might flip, however, that Kimmel found most troubling. “I mean, if he’s not guilty of anything, why does it matter if he flips?” Kimmel asked. “Flip away. Flip like an acrobat.”
“Here’s the thing,” the host added. “Almost no one ultimately turns out to be loyal to Donald Trump, because Donald Trump isn’t loyal to them. He cheats in business, he cheats at golf, cheats in marriage, definitely cheats on his taxes—that’s why we haven't seen them. He throws everybody that works for him under the bus eventually. Loyalty to Donald Trump means you scratch my back, and then we’re done.”
