The seemingly neverending stream of upsetting news about the Trump administration seems to have finally gotten to Jimmy Kimmel. On his show Wednesday night, Kimmel’s monologue briefly took a bit of a nihilistic turn as he pondered the apparently very real possibility now that Donald Trump will shut down Robert Mueller’s investigation, as well as the idea that there will be plenty of people in the U.S. government who will let it happen.
“This morning on Twitter, President Trump — did you know he has a Twitter account? So this morning, the Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert Mueller is floating the idea of subpoenaing the President. After that Trump ominously tweeted a quote from a former U.S. Attorney who said, ‘the President has unfettered power to fire anyone.’ And then in another tweet, he threatened to use ‘the powers granted the presidency’ to stop this investigation if it keeps going much longer. And I guess some people are OK with that. With the President threatening to squash an ongoing investigation into his own possibly illegal actions,” Kimmel said.
“But hey, you know what? Democracy had a good run. Maybe it’s time for us to try something else. We don’t want to get all clingy.”
The audience took the joke in stride, laughing briefly before bursting into applause in response to the comment.
Kimmel then tried to lighten the mood by cracking wise about Trump’s revolving door of lawyers.
“Trump lost another lawyer today. Ty Cobb, who is the main man dealing with the special counsel for all this time, decided ‘that’s it, I’m retiring.’ And the guy stepping in for him is best known for being one of Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyers,” Kimmel said. “His name is Emmet Flood. When your lawyer is named after a natural disaster you know you’re in good hands.”
Kimmel closed this thread with a synergistic “Avengers” joke.
“Ty Cobb is now out, and Emmet Flood is in. At this point, there are more Trump lawyers than there are Avengers. There are a lot.”
You can watch this portion of the monologue from Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the video above. The video also includes a new edition of “Drunk Donald Trump,” in which “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” slows down a video of Trump speaking to make it sound like he’s slurring his speech.