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The implications of the presidential debate might seem dire — you know, since one candidate ranted about eating pets — but comedians have thankfully arrived to bring some much-needed levity to the entire ordeal.
Jimmy Kimmel, who has turned roasting Republican candidate Donald Trump into something of a Picasso-level artform, return to his ways last night during his post-debate monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The talk show host, who hasn’t let up on the former president for the better part of seven years, took specific aim at Trump’s ever-changing takes on Kamala Harris’ name, which he has consistently mispronounced ever since she ascended as the Democratic nominee. So plentiful are these mispronunciations (one of which bizarrely read “Kamabla”) that Kimmel saw it fit to create a compilation.
Since Kimmel has a flair for Trump-related theatrics (like that time he made Stormy Daniels choose Trump’s *member* out of a mushroom lineup), this wasn’t just any compilation. The comedian patched together Trump’s many variations on the name Kamala in the style of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, which featured in the 1937 movie musical Shall We Dance.
Naturally, what followed was a rendition that felt every bit as slapstick as the former president himself, culminating in that hilarious clip from 2016 in which he demands the stage lights be turned “OFF!”. Kimmel framed Trump’s consistent mispronunciations as “stupid and racist”, which probably should’ve been the title of his new book instead of Save America.
It’s unclear whether pronunciations like “Kamabla” are intentional on Trump’s part or whether they’re simply the result of his perpetual, typo-friendly keyboard bashing (remember “Covfefe”?), but the candidate’s lacklustre articulation wasn’t the only target for Kimmel.
Elsewhere in the monologue, Kimmel made fun of Trump posting AI-generated cat memes on the day of the debate, in reference to the supposed Ohioan pet scandal, and publicly shared JD Vance’s phone number in retaliation to circulating the claim in the first place.
It’s the latest development in the tit-for-tat game that Trump and Kimmel have been playing for years. Among other quips, Trump has in the past described Kimmel as a “lousy host” and “not a talented guy” whose “ratings are terrible”. For his part, Kimmel has poked fun at Trump’s lunar eclipse gaffe, revelled in his guilty verdict, and looked certifiably giddy while quizzing Daniels on his bedroom performance during a 2019 interview.
Oh, Kimmel was also bizarrely bought into the Trump-verse again in 2022, when devoted sycophant Marjorie Taylor Green claimed she filed a police report against him in response to a joke he made during a monologue. In any case, Trump’s unique take on his opponent’s name was far from the only blunder he endured during the debate, which it’s widely believed was won by Harris.
In addition to the pet-eating claims, Trump continued his lies about the 2020 election, suffered a cringe-inducing weak hand shake, and consistently took Harris’ bait with the same fervent energy as a fish on first sight a delicious worm. So yeah, Kimmel’s roast was more than warranted.