One of the stranger things that happened on Friday was when Trump paid a visit to “Fox & Friends,” which was broadcasting from the White House lawn, and then did follow-up interviews with other outlets immediately after. Trump covered a ton of ground during the long sequence of comments, and Jimmy Kimmel tried to sift through them during his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” monologue Friday night.
Kimmel started with various comments Trump made about Kim Jong Un, singling out one as “the most insane” the bit where Trump said: “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” When Kimmel played the clip it drew loud groans from the studio audience.
“Right, nothing un-American about that. All he wants from us is when he speaks, we sit up at attention. Steve Doocy does it, is it too much to ask from the rest of us? Here’s the thing, the reason people sit up at attention for Kim Jong Un is because if they don’t, he’ll feed them to an alligator,” Kimmel pointed out.
“And by the way, is Donald Trump really worried we’re not paying enough attention to him? I pay more attention to him than I do my own children, okay? “These comments this morning created quite a covfefe, so much so that Trump was asked to clarify what he meant by the fake news team at CNN.”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” then played a clip of Trump taking exception to CNN’s question.
“I’m kidding, you don’t understand sarcasm. Wait, wait, who are you with? You’re with CNN? You are the worst,” Trump said in the clip.
“You guys, stop calling me out on my words!” Kimmel said after the clip, before moving on to the next topic.
“Trump also lied even more brazenly than usual about what might be his administration’s most despicable action to date, and that is taking children away from their parents at the border. This is a policy he implemented. But here’s what he had to say about that.”
Trump, in the next clip: “I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law. [reporters interrupt with more questions] Quiet, quiet. That’s the Democrats’ law. We can change it tonight. We can change it right now. I will leave here — no, no. You need their votes. The children, the children can be taken care of. Quickly, beautifully, and immediately. The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it.”
“Right. I think we can all agree the real victim here is President Trump. they should literally light his pants on fire for that one. If only he controlled the White house, the House and the Senate, maybe he could do something about this,” Kimmel said, dripping with actual sarcasm.
Finally, Kimmel got to the Paul Manafort situation.
“Today was actually an alarming day for King Trump. Paul Manafort went to jail today courtesy of Robert Mueller after allegations of witness tampering while he was under house arrest. And here’s what Donald Trump had to say about him.”
In this clip, Trump said: “Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. He worked for Ronald Reagan, he worked for Bob Dole, he worked for John McCain or his firm did, he worked for many other Republicans. He worked for me for 49 days or something. Very short period of time.”
“Actually it was 144 days, not 49,” Kimmel said. “Trump claimed Manafort had nothing to do with his campaign. You can’t claim your campaign manager had nothing to do with your campaign. Let me break this down in terms the president will understand. If you went to McDonald’s and ordered a 20-piece McNuggets and they only put 19 in the box, who would you ask to speak to? The manager. That’s right. Your campaign manager is in jail. If this is a witch hunt, they caught a witch.”
You can watch Friday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in full on ABC.com here or on the ABC app.