ABC shifted its late night schedule around a bit this week, putting “Jimmy Kimmel Live” back in its normal 11:35 p.m. ET time slot and cutting the show off early for “Nightline.” But Kimmel still opened his show on Monday night in the standard way for every late night show at the moment: with a monologue mocking Donald Trump for his haphazard handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kimmel started his monologue with some jokes about how Easter went for his family on Sunday, but then after a couple minutes pivoted to Trump’s apparent new feud with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief epidemiologist.
“Looks like the President has another enemy inside his administration, and unfortunately that enemy is Dr Anthony Fauci,” Kimmel said. “Dr. Fauci was on CNN with Jake Tapper yesterday. Jake asked him if casualties could have been prevented had the social distancing and stay-at-home orders been put in place sooner. And the answer was not exactly what Trump wants to hear his people saying.
In the clip that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” had queued up, Fauci says that had measures been put in place earlier we “could have saved lives. Obviously no one is going to deny that.”
“Well, the President is. The President is definitely going to deny that,” Kimmel said after the clip. “Trump was obviously not pleased. He retweeted a post that included the hashtag ‘Time to #FireFauci.’ Every time someone tells the truth he gets mad. Is that a good sign?
“A spokesperson for the White House said the media chatter is ridiculous and that Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci. So he is definitely firing Dr. Fauci. If Dr. Fauci wants to keep this job he’d better find a way to blame this virus on Hunter Biden, and quick.”
Hunter Biden is, of course, the son of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Kimmel then brought up Trump’s promise in March that he’d have the country open again by Easter. Which obviously didn’t not prove true since Easter is over and we’re still in quarantine.
“On March 24th, which was less than three weeks ago, the President said he expected the country to be back up and running by Easter. But here’s the thing: he didn’t say which Easter,” Kimmel joked. “Maybe he meant next year. Or the year after that. Trump has no idea when the country will be open for business again but that doesn’t stop reporters from continually asking when the country will be open again.
Next we got a clip of a reporter asking Trump what metrics he’s using to help figure out when we can go outside again. And Trump responds by saying the metrics he’s using to help make a decision are “right here” and points to his right temple.
“His tanning bronzer is his metrics?” Kimmel laughed. “‘If my face is orange, the country will stay closed. But if we see it shift to tangerine, game on!’”
You can check out Kimmel’s monologue from Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in the video embedded up at the top of this post.