Late-night hosts react to Trump’s ongoing threats against ABC for airing Kimmel and discuss his bizarre UN address

Jimmy Kimmel: ‘I talk about Trump more than anything because he’s a bully. I don’t like bullies.’ Photograph: YouTube

Late-show hosts discuss Jimmy Kimmel’s record-breaking return to air and Donald Trump’s escalator snafu at the United Nations.

Jimmy Kimmel

After breaking his own YouTube monologue record and attracting 6.2 million broadcast viewers on Tuesday night, Kimmel celebrated the fact that his show returned again on Wednesday – at least, “for most of the country”, as Jimmy Kimmel Live! remained off the air for a number of ABC affiliates, including channels in Seattle, Washington DC, Nashville, New Orleans, St

“Thank God they’re not pre-empting the new season of The Golden Bachelor because of this,” he joked, referring to his suspension by ABC owner Disney under pressure from the Trump administration. “The FCC might not like jokes about the president, but they are still very OK with Poppop getting a squeezer in a Jacuzzi, and I think we can be very grateful for that.

“A lot of people watched our show last night,” he continued. “I got so many texts from so many people – it made me realize how many of my friends are never watching the show at any other time.”

That included “one very special friend” – Trump, Kimmel’s beloved “mad red hatter”, who wrote on Truth Social hours before Kimmel aired: “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”

“You can’t believe they gave me my job back?” Kimmel mused. “I can’t believe we gave you your job back.”

Trump continued: “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers!”

Kimmel fired back: “There’s the threat again, this time straight from FCC-biscuit’s mouth. Only Donald Trump would try to prove he wasn’t threatening ABC by threatening ABC.

“You almost have to feel sorry for the people who work for him, who try to clean up the messes,” he added. “They go to all these lengths to say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t coercion! The president was just musing!’ And then the second Trump is alone, he sits on the toilet, he gets his grubby little thumbs on his phone, and he immediately blows their excuses to smithereens, and says it was ratings that got me fired.”

Trump ended his Truth Social rant with: “Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad ratings.”

“And he does know bad ratings. He has some of the worst ratings any president has ever had,” Kimmel laughed, referring to Trump’s record-low poll numbers. “So on behalf of all of us, welcome to the crappy ratings club, Mr President.”

Late in the monologue, Kimmel offered an explanation to his critics for his continued focus on Trump. “I talk about Trump more than anything because he’s a bully. I don’t like bullies – I played the clarinet in high school.” And Trump, he said, was “an old-fashioned, 80s movie-style bully”.

Backing Trump was like “rooting for Biff from Back to the Future”, he added, referring to the villain of the 1985 film. “I don’t know about you, I’m with Marty McFly.”

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert opened Wednesday’s Late Show monologue in a good mood, “because last night our good friend Jimmy Kimmel returned to television”.

“Jimmy spoke beautifully about free speech and unity,” he said. “He made great jokes, showed his deep emotions, got huge ratings.”

But “that wasn’t the only victory for free speech yesterday”, as a statue depicting Trump and Jeffrey Epstein skipping and holding hands was placed on the National Mall. “It’s a lovely piece, but I’ve gotta say, not very realistic – Trump can’t stand on one leg, not with those cankles!” Colbert joked. “It would be like trying to balance on a sock full of overripe honeydew.”

The controversial statue was put up by artists issued an official permit to “demonstrate freedom of speech and artistic expression using political imagery” by the National Park Service. “Good for you, National Park Service,” said Colbert, “and thank you for protecting free speech for almost 24 hours”, because despite the permit allowing the sculpture to stand until Sunday, park police removed it on Wednesday morning.

In response, Colbert pretended to navigate the cancellation of Disney+ on his phone – “worked last time!”

Park police said the statue was not “in compliance” with the permit, though it did not specify how. “I think we know how it violated the permit,” said Colbert. “We’ve all seen those signs in the national parks: ‘Leave no trace … of the Epstein files.’”

Seth Meyers

And on Late Night, Seth Meyers focused on Trump’s visit to the UN in New York this week. “It’s easy to forget because so much has happened, but when Trump was running for president last year, he was adamant he was going to bring peace to the world,” he reminded viewers before several clips of Trump making such claims as “I will end the chaos in the Middle East quickly” or end the war in Ukraine “in no longer than one day”.

“In fairness, he said it would take him one day, he didn’t say which day,” Meyers laughed. But “as a general rule, you should always be skeptical when someone tells you they can solve any problem in one day”.

But Trump didn’t focus on any of that at his UN address. Instead, he was thrown off by a broken escalator, which shut down as soon as he stepped on to it. On Fox News, Karoline Leavitt accused the UN of trying to “sabotage” him with the frozen escalator and teleprompter.

“Man, you know I’ve heard a lot about these globalists over the years, but I didn’t realize their MO was to just burn you with soft pranks,” Meyers laughed.

“Teleprompter down, escalator off. When the president was talking, someone tied his shoelaces together! Are they a shadowy cabal or Kevin from Home Alone?”

On Wednesday evening, Trump took to Truth Social to name the escalator episode among three “very sinister events” that took place during his UN visit. He claimed that Melania avoided a “disaster” by not falling “forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first”. He then called for the arrest of the person responsible for the frozen escalator.

A spokesperson for the UN previously blamed Trump’s videographer for the incident, suggesting that they may have “inadvertently triggered” a built-in safety function while proceeding backward up the escalator to film his arrival.

Meyers had to laugh: “Oh, hey, look at that – they solved the conflict in one day! How about that?”