Jimmy Kimmel is criticizing Donald Trump for his response to the death of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder who was fatally shot on Wednesday on a college campus in Utah.
“His death has amplified our anger, our differences,” Kimmel said during his Thursday night monologue on his ABC late night show. “And I’ve seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand. We had another school shooting yesterday in Colorado, the hundredth one of the year.”
“With all of these terrible things happening, you would think that our president would at least make an attempt to bring us together. But he didn’t,” Kimmel continued. “President Obama did. President Biden did. Presidents Bush and Clinton did. President Trump did not. Instead, he blamed Democrats for their rhetoric. The man who told a crowd of supporters that maybe the Second Amendment people should do something about Hillary Clinton. The man who said he wouldn’t mind if someone shot through the fake news media. The man who unleashed a mob on the Capitol, and said Liz Cheney should face nine barrels shooting at her for supporting his opponent, blames the radical left for their rhetoric. And then the man who on Sept. 11, 2001 bragged that his building was now the tallest building in New York, which wasn’t even true.”
Kimmel originally took to Instagram on Wednesday to react in real time to Kirk’s death. He posted: “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
Fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert also recorded a solemn message that aired before his “Late Show” episode hours after Kirk’s death.
“I am old enough to personally remember the political violence of the 1960s, and I hope it is obvious to everyone in America that political violence does not solve any of our political differences. Political violence only leads to more political violence,” Colbert said at the time.
Addressing “The Late Show” audience on Thursday, Colbert added about Kirk: “However you feel about his politics he was a young father of two small children and an American who has the constitutional right to express his opinion in safety. It should go without saying that violence is never the answer to political disagreement.”
Watch Kimmel’s latest monologue in the video below.
