Jimmy Kimmel conceded during his monologue on Monday that Joe Biden did indeed promise, very vocally, that he wouldn’t use his presidential pardon power to help his son Hunter out of his legal woes.
“But to be fair, there’s a very good chance he doesn’t remember saying that,” Kimmel joked. (Obviously referring to Biden’s age and age-related problems he very visibly had this year.)
But before that joke, Kimmel brought people up to speed on the pardon — which you can read about here — and the reaction to it.
“Trump has a lot to give thanks for this year, but no one has more to be thankful for this weekend than Hunter Biden. President Biden, even though he specifically said he wouldn’t, pardoned his son Hunter yesterday on federal tax and firearm charges. He dropped the pardon out of nowhere like it was a Kendrick Lamar album, and it caught pretty much everyone by surprise,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel then played some reactions, and also joked that “Trump’s got a couple of Hunters himself,” referring to his sons Don Jr. and Eric.
“Now, I am not a Presidential historian, but I believe – this is the first time a US President has pardoned both his son, and a turkey, in the same week. Biden released a statement saying that the charges in Hunter’s case were politically motivated and his son was ‘selectively and unfairly prosecuted,’” Kimmel explained.
“In other words, the Biden presidency has now entered the “grandpa doesn’t give a damn about what you think” phase,” he added.
“I wonder if Joe now has to get Hunter anything for Christmas. This is good enough right?” Kimmel continued, at which point he took a look at the reaction from right wing media, which he said “is going so nuts over this, you’d almost think they got a tape of Biden calling Georgia, asking for eleven thousand votes.”
After playing clips of some particularly risible reactions, Kimmel said, “everyone who voted to let a 34-time convicted felon off the hook, is very mad about Joe Biden letting his son off the hook… And I, by the way, I don’t, I don’t necessarily disagree. The guy committed crimes. But let’s, take a stroll through reality here.”
“Not only did Trump pardon his son-in-law Jared’s Dad, who went to prison for hiring a hooker to frame his own brother-in-law, this weekend he named that same man US ambassador to France,” Kimmel elaborated.
“And yes, Joe Biden did say he wasn’t going to pardon Hunter. But to be fair, there’s a very good chance he doesn’t remember saying that. Okay?”
Kimmel mocked Donald Trump for his statement demanding Biden also pardon “the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years,” but offered that “it’d be pretty funny if it did! Right? ‘I hereby pardon my son Hunter, and what the hell, the Q-Anon Shaman too.”
Watch the whole monologue below: