US President Donald Trump took a swipe at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel early Thursday after he opened his show Wednesday night with comments about the Epstein files and questioned whether Trump knew anything more about the sex offender's crimes.
“We're keeping a close eye on Hurricane Epstein right now. It's a Category 5; it's expected to make landfall very soon,” Kimmel said.
Hours after the show aired, Trump published on Social Truth that Jimmy Kimmel Live! to be taken off the air, months after the president welcomed short-term suspension late night talk show.
The president did not mention Epstein by name, but criticized ABC for continuing to air Kimmel's show.
“Why ABC Fake News Continues Jimmy Kimmela person without TALENT and with a VERY BAD TELEVISION RATING, on air?” Trump wrote: “Why are TV syndicates putting up with this?”
Trump also called Kimmel's comments “totally biased.”
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“Get your ass off the air!!!” Trump added.
In his monologue, a day after the U.S. House and Senate voted back-to-back to pass a bill requiring the Justice Department to release files related to a deceased convicted sex offender, Kimmel said, “We are now one step closer to answering the question: What did the president know and how old were these women when he knew it?”
However, the bill would exclude any documents that are part of an ongoing investigation.
The president has insisted that the push to release Epstein's files was fueled by what he calls a Democratic “hoax” to derail his presidency – despite growing pressure within his own party to release them and his agreement to sign legislation to that effect.
While Trump has never been formally accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case, he has often been implicated. associated with a convicted sex offender, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Their relationship is well documented, with them appearing together at social events in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Trump's name, like many other famous personalities, is also written. several times in flight logs for Epstein's private jet in the 1990s, although he denies ever being on board.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the allegations against Epstein.
The result of the vote to pass the bill, which passed through Congress with near-unanimous support on Tuesday, became the subject of one of Kimmel's jokes.
“Usually when Trump gets a bill, he declares bankruptcy and doesn’t pay it, but he’s going to have to sign this one,” Kimmel continued. “Or at least he says he'll sign it, which means there's about a 12 percent chance he'll do it.”
“Trump hasn't been this nervous about signing anything since Don Jr.'s birth certificate,” the late-night host joked.
Kimmel's remarks come about two months after his show was temporarily suspended. taken off the air, then allowed to recover following comments he made regarding the murder of a right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirkwho died after being shot in the neck at the Turning Point USA rally on September 10.
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