A visibly emotional Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his first show back after the Los Angeles wildfires shut down “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with a heartfelt celebration of the city’s people and the firefighters battling the blazes.
“As you know, it has been a very scary, very stressful, very strange week here in L.A., where we work, where we live, where our kids go to school,” Kimmel said as he began his Monday monologue.
The ABC host then noted that the show’s studio had to be evacuated on Wednesday, and how many people working on the show “had to leave our homes in a hurry. Some of our co-workers lost their homes… It’s been terrible. Everyone who lives in this city knows someone, most of us, multiple people, families, friends, colleagues, neighbors, whose houses burned down.”
“And the truth is, we don’t even know if it’s over,” Kimmel lamented. “We had 100 mile per hour winds fueling this nightmare. As of tonight, the winds are back. I think I speak for all of us when I say it has been a sickening, shocking, awful experience.”
But, Kimmel said, “In a lot of ways, a beautiful experience because once again, we see our fellow men and women coming together to support each other.”
As proof, he noted the volunteers who went out to help people, including people who’d lost their own homes who went to help other people in the same situation.
He contrasted that to “the vile and irresponsible and stupid things our alleged future president and his gaggle of scumbags chose to say during our darkest and most terrifying hour,” referring to the lies and misinformation about the fire, threats to withhold aid from the region to punish it politically and the bigoted insults aimed at firefighters.
“The fact that they chose to attack our firefighters, who apparently aren’t white enough to be out there, risking their lives on our behalf is — it’s disgusting. But it’s not surprising,” Kimmel added. “Instead, I want to focus on thanking those men and women, because that’s all we should be doing right now. And we should never stop thanking them.”
Kimmel then focused on some of the heroism displayed by firefighters over the week, and celebrated the outpouring of support from firefighters from other states and even Canada and Mexico.
“We are very grateful to them. And to our police, our National Guard, our rescue workers, doctors, the nurses, EMTs, the pilots working 12-hour shifts, thank God for all of you,” Kimmel said, at which point he also encouraged viewers to support LAFD.org with donations.
“And I also want to thank our local news reporters, who reminded us how important local television and radio and newspapers are,” he added.
There’s a lot more, including some moving chats with people who are helping out. Watch the whole monologue, above.
