One of the weirdest stories this week came courtesy of New York Mayor Eric Adams who, for some reason, decided to insult the state of Kansas. But on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday night, Kimmel came to the rescue with a snappy comeback Kansas should have used against the out-of-nowhere interstate diss.
Adams’ comments came on Tuesday when, while talking about why he thinks it’s important for New York to get involved with recovery efforts in the Caribbean following recent devastation caused by hurricanes, he said, “This city was saying to people that they matter. We have a brand. New York has a brand, and when people see it, it means something.”
“Kansas doesn’t have a brand. New York has a brand. That brand means diversity, that brand means we care, that brand means we are compassionate,” he added.
Plenty of Kansans were angered by this unprovoked insult. Responses ran aplenty across the political spectrum, but in his monologue, Kimmel highlighted one of the cornier comebacks and offered an even better one of his own.
“Former Brooklyn Borough President and current Mayor of New York Eric Adams is getting some heat for a comment he made about, of all places, Kansas,” Kimmel said, playing the clip of Adams’ statement.
“First of all, I just want to say my wife went to Kansas, and I have to defend them. Kansas does have a brand. It’s the rectangle next to the other rectangle. But more importantly, what did Kansas do to deserve that?” Kimmel continued.
“I mean, they’re minding their own business and then they get an unprompted attack from the Mayor of New York! Obviously, the insult didn’t sit well with people from Kansas, who issued this very Kansassy rebuttal on their local news,” Kimmel added before cuing up a clip.
That news segment listed several positive things about Kansas, including that 2.9 million people live in Kansas, that Dodge City is the actual windiest city in America (“It ain’t Chicago,” the anchor said), and that the state has more than 400 caves.
“Wow. Woah, woah, woah. No need to get nasty guys. Come on now,” Kimmel reacted after the video ended. “Somebody needs to help Kansas with their snaps. They’re bragging about how many caves they have.”
And then Kimmel provided the very good snap: “And the truth is, New York and Kansas have a lot more in common than you think. For one thing, both places don’t like Eric Adams, right?”
Kimmel was correct of course: Adams is polling pretty poorly since taking office.
Immediately after, Kimmel took a detour to discuss how Elon Musk has unseated Jeff Bezos as the richest man in America, and in the process got in very good insults against both of them.
“Oh, hey, speaking of unlikeable people, the richest man in America is now Elon Musk,” Kimmel said. “According to the new Forbes 400 list, Elon Musk is worth around $251 billion. He beat out Jeff Bezos, who topped the list last year,” Kimmel explained.
“Bezos ceded his spot at No. 1 in a show of solidarity with employees who aren’t allowed to go No. 1 on the job,” Kimmel joked.
After that, he told some jokes about Donald Trump, but we’ll let you just watch those yourself.
You can see the whole monologue in the video above.
