“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” guest host Nicole Byer dedicated part of her Wednesday night monologue this week to mocking President Donald Trump’s first round of Kennedy Center honorees since taking over as the institution’s new chairman.
Trump’s picks included Sylvester Stallone, country music star George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, the members of Kiss and English actor and singer Michael Crawford. Byer, for her part, did not hesitate to mock the odd assemblage of performers. “Giving Kiss a Kennedy Center Honor is like giving Garth Brooks a BET Award,” she joked.
“The ceremony isn’t until December, but Trump’s already lined up a pretty amazing host,” Byer continued, before rolling a clip in which the president announced that he will be hosting this year’s KCH ceremony himself. In response to groans from the in-studio audience, Byer defended Trump’s decision to host and actually pushed for him to host more ceremonies in the future.
“You guys, I’m glad he’s hosting this,” she joked. “Let him host the Emmys, the Grammys, a podcast with Theo Von. He could be the host out of Applebee’s! Anything that distracts him from running this country into the ground!”
The “JKL” team did not stop mocking Trump’s first stint as Kennedy Center chairman there. Moments later, Byer teed up a fake ad for the institution’s honors in December, narrated by a Trump impressionist who promised that the ceremony will feature special appearances from, among other guests, “Skeletor, Kim Jong-un and [longtime Domino’s Pizza advertising figure] the Noid.”
“I’m hearing a lot of good and great things about the Noid,” the ad’s fake Trump explained. “Definitely not on the Epstein list, which doesn’t exist anymore, so stop talking about it.” The commercial ends with Trump announcing that the event will be held at Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse in Nashville and broadcast live on CBS … “because I made them my bitch.”
You can watch Byer’s full ABC monologue in the video above.
