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President Donald Trump doubled down on his claim that late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon are next in line to lose their jobs as networks begin to shy away from criticising his administration.
With Paramount already moving earlier this summer to cancel CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Trump was asked at a press conference on Wednesday about “shock jock” Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show reportedly being brought to an end and whether that meant anti-Trump comedy was facing extinction.
“Well, it hasn’t worked,” the president said. “And it hasn’t worked, really, for a long time, and I would say pretty much from the beginning. Colbert has no talent.
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Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel are facing the axe (Getty)
“I mean, I could take anybody here. I could go outside in the beautiful streets and pick a couple of people that do just as well or better. They’d get higher ratings than he did. He’s got no talent.
“Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next. They’re going to be going. I hear they’re going to be going. I don’t know, but I would imagine because they’d get – you know, Colbert has better ratings than Kimmel or Fallon.”
Drawn on Stern, whose show Trump once regularly appeared on to outrageous effect, exchanging scandalous remarks with his fellow New Yorker, he said: “He lost his audience. People said, ‘Give me a break.’ He went down when he endorsed Hillary Clinton [in 2016].”
Trump previously claimed that the end was nigh for Kimmel and Fallon last month when, gloating over Colbert’s cancellation on Truth Social, he wrote: “The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone.
“These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”
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The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was cancelled earlier this summer as networks growing increasingly nervous about provoking the White House (The Late Show/YouTube)
The president is known to harbor a particular loathing for Kimmel, who attacked him while hosting the Academy Awards in March 2024 by reading aloud a social media post from Trump deriding the broadcast before asking: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Trump has never taken kindly to humor at his own expense, from Barack Obama making fun of his “birther” conspiracy theory and glitzy taste in decor at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in 2011 to Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live during his first term.
He also routinely accuses celebrities who criticize him of lacking talent, notably calling Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep “overrated” after she rebuked him at the 2017 Golden Globes for cruelly mocking a disabled journalist.
Other figures from the entertainment world with whom Trump maintains longstanding beefs include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bette Midler, Debra Messing, Rosie O’Donnell, Robert De Niro, and Bruce Springsteen.