Jimmy Kimmel was taken by surprise Thursday when the grand jury investigating Donald Trump in connection to hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels in 2017 actually indicted him. The late night host was still a couple of hours away from taping when the news broke Thursday, giving him time to talk about the event he called “historic, and it’s funny. It’s very, very funny.”
The ‘J’ in ‘Donald J. Trump’ now stands for jail,” Kimmel said at the top of the monologue.
“For the first time in this country’s history, an American President has been indicted for his role in paying hush money to a porn star,” Kimmel said. “Although in fairness, that’s a pretty narrow window. Like when Grover Cleveland was president, porn stars were very hard to come by.”
“But still, it’s historic, and, it’s funny. It’s very very funny,” Kimmel said, laughing about how weird it is that “of all the things he’s done, the one that bit Trump in the ass was a round of post-golf putter butter with the star of ‘SexBots: Programmed for Pleasure.’”
Kimmel recounted how just the day before, Trump had posted nice sentiments about the grand jury on Truth Social, among other things crowing that “the grand jury is saying, hold on, we are not a rubber stamp, which most grand juries are branded as being, we are not going to vote against a preponderance of evidence.”
“And he was right,” Kimmel said. “They voted for a preponderance of evidence against him, that evidence being his payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, who he claims he doesn’t know, and his own lawyer saying Trump directed him to make that payment, and disguise that payment as a ‘legal expense.’”
“I’ve not seen a preponderance of evidence in person but that’s what I think it looks like,” Kimmel added.
Kimmel then contrasted Trump’s previous statements with his reaction to being indicted, reading the very lengthy, angry rants the former president posted, including one where Trump made a particularly amusing typo, writing, “These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America.”
“Hopefully he can spend some time at the prison library learning how to spell,” Kimmel cracked. He then noted how the spectacle of Trump’s arrest seems made for television, calling the former president “The Biggest Loser,” which inspired other TV-related jokes.
“Maybe that’s what he’ll do now. Maybe instead of running for president, he’ll do another show. Like the ‘Celebrity Appre-hentice.’ Or maybe a sitcom like ‘Arrested Developer.’”
There’s a whole lot more — Kimmel spent the majority of his monologue talking about the indictment, or topics closely related to it — and you can watch the entire “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” monologue in the video above.
