We’re sure you’re all aware that the Senate barely managed to reach an agreement to temporarily continue funding the U.S. government, avoiding a shutdown that could have had catastrophic consequences for the economy.
Of course, the agreement just kicked the can down the road to December, and there’s still the danger that Republicans will succeed in preventing the Senate from raising the debt ceiling in two weeks, which would have even worse economic consequences. But on Thursday night, Jimmy Kimmel managed to find the silver lining in that otherwise horrible cloud. And weirdly, it involves Donald Trump.
“The government was going to run out of money at midnight tonight,” Kimmel said as he kicked off his monologue. “But enough members of Congress got their act together to pass a “stop-gap” funding bill that will keep things going until December 3rd. Which just happens to be Ozzy Osbourne’s birthday.
“Coincidence? Yes. It is a coincidence,” Kimmel joked.
“35 Republicans in the Senate voted against the extension. And they didn’t raise the debt ceiling, which means we are still facing what the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics calls ‘financial Armageddon,’” Kimmel continued. “Which is a very bad kind of Armageddon. It’s one of the worst kinds of Armageddon. Even Bruce Willis is powerless against Financial Armageddon.”
“And the crazy thing is, in the movie Armageddon, they were trying to avoid being hit by an asteroid, right? But in this one, Mitch McConnell’s like, ‘we welcome the asteroid. I’ll just rub a little cream on it if it hits us,’” Kimmel said.
Then Kimmel explained the situation a little. “People are confused by the debt ceiling. Republicans say they’re against raising the debt ceiling because Democrats want to spend too much,” he said. “But the debt ceiling is for money we’ve already spent, under Trump, under Obama, under Bush and so on. It’s money we owe. That’s why they call it ‘debt.’”
“But Donald Trump’s party, they do things like Donald Trump. They’re like, ‘We owe money? Let’s just not pay it and see what happens,” Kimmel continued.
“The “Debt Ceiling” doesn’t stop Congress from spending more money,” Kimmel added — correctly, we should note. “It only stops them from paying for what we’ve already spent. Which, imagine what would happen if you did that in like Las Vegas. You’d lose ten grand at the craps table and then you’re like, ‘Sorry. I have a debt ceiling of like 500 bucks.’”
And then, after a couple of more jokes, Kimmel got to the silver lining of this whole mess:
“I will say though – it is nice that the big political stories of the day are about infrastructure and a spending bill instead of ‘Trump calls Kim Jong Un a chubby bitch.’ That’s progress, right?”
Yep.
Watch the whole monologue above now.