Jimmy Kimmel Makes Plea to Republicans Ahead of Election
Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his latest episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a message directly for moderate Republicans.
Ahead of the show, the host posted on social media, asking for people to “ask a Republican you love” to watch Wednesday night, as he has a “special monologue” for them.
“I assume you’re watching this because you care about the person who asked you to watch it, or maybe you’re just open-minded and not afraid to hear somebody who might not agree with you speak,” Kimmel said to kick off the show. “Either way, thank you for giving me 15 minutes of your life to talk about Donald Trump. Maybe you love him, and you’ll vote for him no matter what he says or what he does. Maybe you hate the other side so much you’ll look past anything he says or does. Or maybe there’s a little voice in the back of your head saying, ‘I might not want this guy driving the bus.’”
The host continued, “But what I’m asking you to hear isn’t what I have to say, that doesn’t matter. I want you to hear what he’s saying. Most Americans — and you are probably one of them — don’t have time to watch his rallies and his speeches and all the interviews. because you have other things to do. But I don’t have other things to do. This is all I have to do. And because I don’t have other things to do, I’ve seen all or at least part of every interview, every speech, every all-caps social media post from this man for the past nine years.”
Over the nearly 20-minute monologue on Wednesday’s episode, Kimmel made a point to only “focus on words that came out of his [Trump’s] mouth.” He played dozens of clips of the former president making comments about a range of topics, including his health care plan he’s been teasing since 2016, childcare, windmills as well as things that are “not real.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be running for President? Aren’t you supposed to be worried about important topics? Kimmel asked at one point. “And here’s the thing, it’s kind of funny, these silly, random rants of his, and it would be fine if he was hosting a podcast or selling knives at the farmers market. But he’s supposed to be leading us. People are listening to him and the country is getting crazier because he makes it OK to be nuts.”
Later, the host emphasized how presidents typically don’t sell products. However, there’s one “who sells a lot of them.” Kimmel proceeded to show a video montage of all of Trump’s ads for products he sells, including Trump coins, coffee table book, trading cards and a “God Bless the USA” bible, among others.
After also noting that several Republicans and former Trump administration members have confessed they’re not endorsing Trump this election, Kimmel began to wrap up his monologue with a message.
“Either he doesn’t care about the truth or he has a hard time understanding what the truth is. Both very bad options!” he said. “So now we have an election on Tuesday, and Trump has made it very clear that if he wins, it was an honest election. And if he loses, it was a rigged election.”
Kimmel continued, “He has no plan to lower grocery prices or to make us safer or to protect the border. The only plans he has is to file lawsuits, legal challenges, settle scores and punish his enemies. … He wants to turn it into ‘Of me, by me, for me.’”
“Listen, politics in a lot of ways is like sports. You probably just root for the team your dad roots for. Maybe you’ve been a Republican your whole life. That’s your team and it feels wrong not to vote for them. But this time around, you wouldn’t be alone. You have a lot of company,” he added. “Most elections are about policy. This one is not. This is about sanity and security and democracy.”
Listen to Kimmel’s full monologue below.
