Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has been using “yabba dabba doofus” Donald Trump as a comedic punching bag for a long time. On Tuesday night, Kimmel continued this routine, poking fun at Trump Media & Technology Group’s plummeting stock prices.
"If you bought Trump stock two weeks ago, and shame on you if you did, you lost half your money,” Kimmel said. “But if you hold on just a little bit longer, you might be able to lose all of it."
He buttoned up the joke with a clip of President Joe Biden making fun of Trump’s financial situation during a speech in Pennsylvania earlier that day.
“Just the other day, defeated-looking guy came up to me and asked if I could help. He was drowning in debt. I said, ‘I'm sorry, Donald, but I can't help you,’” Biden quipped.
Kimmel remarked that it was “a pretty good one” for a guy who Trump has described as unable to “put two sentences together.”
Trump is clearly paying attention. And he’s clearly feeling super angry-red-face emoji about it. Early Wednesday morning, Trump got on his Truth Social account and attacked Kimmel in a particularly unhinged—and factually incorrect—Academy Awards show rant. Yes, you read that right.
CNN helpfully pointed out that a big part of Trump’s attack on Kimmel seems to be related to something that Kimmel is actually not guilty of at all.
Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Kimmel wasn’t the person who delivered an unusual, abrupt performance in announcing the Best Picture award won by “Oppenheimer”; that was actually legendary actor Al Pacino, whom Kimmel had introduced. And the current standard Oscars announcement phrase Pacino neglected to say is “and the Oscar goes to,” not “and the winner is” as was the standard prior to 1989.
Recently, Kimmel has woven some gold out of Trump’s sleepy days in a New York City courtroom, where the orange one is facing dozens of felony counts related to hush money payments he made to hide an extramarital affair with an adult film star.
One clip Kimmel didn’t show from Biden’s Pennsylvania speech included his tax plan, which would only increase taxes for Americans who make more than $400,000 a year. “I have to say, if Trump’s stock in the Truth Social, his company, drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his,” Biden said to a laughing audience. “It’s possible.”
Zachary Mueller is the senior research director for America’s Voice and America’s Voice Education Fund. He brings his expertise on immigration politics to talk about how much money the GOP is using to promote its racist immigration campaigns.
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