US President Donald Trump lashed out at late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday after he made comments about the Epstein scandal at the beginning of his show Wednesday night, asking whether the president knew anything more about the sex offender's crimes.
“We are currently closely tracking the path of Hurricane Epstein. It is a Category 5 storm and is expected to make landfall soon,” Kimmel said.
Hours after the show aired, President Trump posted on Truth Social: “Jimmy Kimmel is live!” The show should have been taken off the air months after the president welcomed the short-lived cancellation of late-night talk shows.
The president did not mention Epstein by name, but criticized the ABC network for continuing to air Kimmel's show.
“Why does ABC Fake News continue to air Jimmy Kimmel with no talent and very low TV ratings?” President Trump wrote, “Why would TV syndicates put up with it?”
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Trump also said Kimmel's comments were “completely biased.”
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“Get your ass out of the air!!!” Trump added.
In his monologue, Kimmel spoke a day after passing a bill that would require the Justice Department to release files on deceased convicted sex offenders. “We're one step closer to answering the questions: What did the president know? And how old were these women when he knew?”
However, the bill would exempt documents that are part of an ongoing investigation.
The president claims the push to release the Epstein files stems from what he calls a “hoax” by Democrats to sabotage his presidency, despite growing pressure from within his own party to release the files and agreeing to sign legislation to do so.
Trump has never been formally accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case, but he frequently had ties to convicted sex offenders, and Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Their relationship is well-documented, and the two appeared together at social events in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Mr. Trump's name, along with the names of many other celebrities, appears multiple times in the flight logs of Mr. Epstein's private plane in the 1990s, but Mr. Trump denies being on board.
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President Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to the allegations against Epstein.
The vote to pass the bill, which passed Congress with near-unanimous support on Tuesday, became one of Kimmel's jokes. “Congress was 427-1. It was such a disaster that Mr. Trump might actually be able to bury the Epstein file under there again,” Kimmel added, before commenting on Mr. Trump's conduct in the White House.
“Normally, when Mr. Trump receives the bill, he declares bankruptcy and doesn't pay it, but this time he has to sign it,” Kimmel continued. “At least he's saying he'll sign. So there's probably about a 12 percent chance he'll sign.”
“President Trump hasn't been this nervous to sign something since Don Jr.'s birth certificate,” the late night host joked.
Kimmel's comments came about two months after his show was briefly taken off the air and later allowed back on the air following comments he made about the murder of right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk, who was shot in the neck and killed at a Turning Point USA rally on September 10.
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