Jimmy Kimmel is off the air after his comments on Charlie Kirk’s death sparked controversy.
On Monday’s show, the late-night host made sharp comments about the reaction to Kirk’s killing and President Donald Trump.
The episode is still up on YouTube, with the segment beginning around the two-minute mark.
Kimmel: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving on Friday. The White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.”
The show then cuts to a clip of a reporter offering condolences for the “loss of his friend” and asking Trump how he’s “holding up over the last day and a half.”
Trump responds, saying, ” I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They’ve just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it’s going to be a beauty.”
The show then cuts back to Kimmel.
Kimmel: “He’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction. Demolition. Construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish. OK? And it didn’t just happen once.”
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The show then cuts back to another clip of Trump on Fox News, describing the moment he learned of Kirk’s death.
“When I heard it, I was in the midst of, you know, building a great, you know, for 150 years, they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They don’t have a ballroom. They have to use tents on the lawn for President Xi when he comes over. If it rains, it’s a wipeout. And so I was with the architects that were designing, it’s going to be incredible,” Trump said. “And they came in. They said, ‘Charlie Kirk is dead.’ I didn’t know what they meant. I said, ‘What do you mean, dead? Charlie Kirk was shot.’ And they thought he was dead cuz it was so horrific, you know, and I said, ‘Dead?'”
The show then cuts back to Kimmel.
Kimmel: “And then we installed the most beautiful chandelier. Sconces you wouldn’t believe. There’s something wrong with them. There really is. I mean, who thinks like that? And why are we building a $200 million ballroom in the White House? Is it possible that he’s doing it intentionally, so we could be mad about that instead of the Epstein list? By the time he’s out of office, the White House will have slot machines in a water slide.”
Kimmel then called out Trump for being in a “major change-the-subject mode.”
Kimmel: “On Friday, he stopped by the always-friendly morning crew at Fox. Whenever Trump goes on Fox and Friends, it’s funny because the hosts are so eager for him to be reasonable. They spell it all out for him. They desperately want to avoid having to nod along with anything crazy or contradict him,” Kimmel said. “So, they give him the question and their preferred answer too.”
The show then cuts to another clip of Trump on Fox News.
“Is the message too, to the right, the people that are going to go, ‘I want revenge,’ not to have revenge? Charlie Kirk would not want revenge?” a Fox reporter asked Trump.
“You want revenge at the voter, that’s where to go,” Trump said.
The show cuts back to Kimmel.
Kimmel: “OK, good answer, right? Take it to the ballot box. That’s reasonable. That’s almost presidential. But that’s the thing. He can never just stop right there.”
It then returns to the same Trump clip, playing the remainder of his quote: “I can’t really say at the ballot box because in some cases, like California, it doesn’t have ballot boxes,” Trump said.
The show then goes back to Kimmel.
Kimmel: “Oh, well, in that case, begin the purge. For the record, we live in California. We do have ballot boxes. We have ballot boxes. We’ve got mailboxes. We have lunch boxes. We have all kinds of boxes. You should come see them sometime. We’ll give you a toolbox. You can live in it.”
Kimmel then shifted his focus to Kash Patel, the director of the FBI.
An ABC spokesperson told Business Insider that the show would be pre-empted “indefinitely.”
Kimmel has hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” since 2003. At the recent Emmys, the show was nominated for three categories but did not win.
