If you didn’t know that Jimmy Kimmel has been suspended from his nightly gig producing a propaganda broadcast in front of a live audience, you’ll be forgiven for actually having a life. But for those of us who’ve been inundated with online reports of how this is bad or good for Western civilization, our forensic investigation continues.
My colleague Stephen Kruiser put it all in perspective in The Morning Briefing today. And if gloating is your thing, you have to read about Roseanne Barr’s epic reaction, courtesy of Matt Margolis.
Going by the headlines, the major reason Kimmel now has more time on his hands is that, when he inserted the Charlie Kimmel assassination into his “comedy” monologue, he spread the myth that the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, was MAGA.
Jimmy Kimmel compares President Trump mourning Charlie Kirk to a 4-year-old mourning a gold fish.
This is the guy that literally cried after President Trump won in 2024, btw. pic.twitter.com/sca7MSNB1w
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) September 16, 2025
This has raised the question of whether comedians should be held to the same standards for truth and accuracy as journalists. While it’s one thing to debate how far-reaching the government should be in policing speech, it’s certainly within the purview of Disney, the owner of Kimmel’s show, to make the prudent decision to take him off the air if he’s spreading a dishonest narrative that adds to the current culture of toxicity. A culture that many blame for Charlie’s assassination.
But there was another part to Kimmel’s monologue that demonstrated just how out-of-touch Kimmel has become and why his humor so consistently misses the mark.
He set up his joke by saying, “On a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.” And then he played a clip of President Trump taking impromptu questions from a scrum of White House reporters.
One off-camera reporter offered the president his condolences and asked him how he was holding up.
The president in DJT style answered by deflecting and pivoting in less than a second.
“I think very good, and by the way right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House,” the president said as he proceeded to change the subject.
Kimmel’s punchline then is that Trump is at the fourth stage of grieving, “construction.” He then went on to frame the president’s approach to grieving as that of how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.
OK, we all know it’s a joke, and a bad one, and timing-wise, a very insensitive one. But it also shows just how clueless Kimmel is when it comes to how real men deal with personal loss and grief. Kimmel, who’s surrounded by Hollywood types who revel in their identities of victimhood, doesn’t get real men, which is why he doesn’t get Trump.
Trump is among the richest people in the world, and yet he does not afford himself the luxury of showing off his vulnerabilities to the world.
He grew up on movies where John Wayne and Clint Eastwood presented the classic male archetype. Fortitude in the face of danger, death, and tragedy. In all of these stories, the hero is not distracted by all of the madness around him. He stays cool and focused, and he serves as a solid guidepost for those around him.
The current, more fashionable term for this is stoicism.
Trump came up in the construction industry. It’s always been a man’s world, populated by no small number of tough and unsavory characters. To deal with all of the interests he’s had to deal with over the years, and to change skylines, he’s learned not to show weakness.
Now in his second term as president, he knows the world is watching his every move. The Middle East is watching. Europe is watching. Vladimir Putin is watching. Xi Jinping is watching. The last thing Trump wants to show them is a crack in his armor.
In terms of his public persona, Trump is easy to understand. He almost never takes off his tie or suit, and when he does, he’s on the golf course. When he talks in public, he’s rarely introspective. For those who’ve met him, it’s always about you when he talks. He wants to talk about you. When he talks to the press, it’s almost always about the thing he’s trying to get done, or the people who stand in his way.
One of his skills is to break this up often enough to entertain, and he does that by bragging a little (or a lot) and by praising or taking shots at famous people. He never uses the media to serve as his therapist, as so many celebrities do.
This approach to compartmentalizing personal feelings is not unique to Trump. Most men are this way in some fashion, especially men of his generation. But Kimmel has lost sight of that, and that’s why he couldn’t comprehend why the President of the United States wouldn’t vomit his vulnerabilities to the press corps on demand.
Related: ABC News Reporter Launches Disgusting New Narrative for Robinson
Last Friday night, when Erika Kirk gave her address to the nation, one of the most touching parts of an extremely touching speech was when she looked into the camera and spoke directly to Charlie’s friend, President Trump. She told the president that Charlie loved him. And she reassured the president, because as his friend, she knew he may have needed this reassuring, that Charlie knew the president loved him, too.
Erika Kirk: “I want to thank President Trump and his incredible family… Mr. President, my husband loved you. And he knew that you loved him too. Your friendship was amazing. You supported him so well.”pic.twitter.com/kpxj0xw663
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) September 13, 2025
This is powerful because anyone who knows how men actually think knows that there is a good chance this was on the president’s mind. Just don’t expect him to talk about such a personal and intimate thing in public.
It’s ironic that Kimmel’s breakout venture into entertainment was a show about men called “The Man Show,” and in 2025, the one thing Kimmel doesn’t have a clue about is men.
One more thing: The culture war is real! If you want to see the Democrats go down to defeat in next year’s midterms and beyond, now is the time to join the battle to Make America Great Again. Without you, America can lose. We need your help to succeed!
As a PJ Media VIP, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commenting privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you this same level of access across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, Bearing Arms). And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT, you’ll receive a 60% discount!
