Like a lot of people, Jimmy Kimmel saw Donald Trump’s petulant statement dissing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, and in his opening monologue on Tuesday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” he dismissed the whole thing as a “dumb version” of “The Lord of the Rings.”
First, Kimmel dinged McConnell for trying “to have it both ways this weekend,” first by voting to acquit Donald Trump despite the overwhelming proof that he is guilty of fomenting a deadly sedition riot, and then attempting to condemn Trump for doing so right after.
“Basically saying, ‘Donald Trump is guilty of all the things I just found him not guilty of,” Kimmel joked, adding “it was the tortoise – versus the crazy yellow hare.”
And at this point, Kimmel showed an excerpt of McConnell’s remarks, but with a turtle standing in for McConnell. (We laughed, we’ll be honest.)
Then he noted that on Tuesday, Trump got around to responding with a whiny public statement raging against McConnell and basically calling on the Republican Party to strip him of his rank and power.
Among the more self indulgent things in that letter, Trump said “the Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Senator Mitch McConnell at its helm,” and of course he bragged about his 2020 voter tally, as though that somehow erases the fact that he lost by over 6 million votes to Joe Biden.
Trump also claimed that McConnell “begged” for his support, claimed that said support was a crucial factor in McConnell’s 2020 election win, and called McConnell “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.”
First, Kimmel mocked Trump because “he’s not allowed to tweet, he has to write letters now.” Then he joked about that “unsmiling” crack.
“Has Donald Trump met his wife? Melania hasn’t smiled since like 2011.”
“This was a seven-paragraph statement,” Kimmel continued. “There were only three paragraphs in the Gettysburg Address.”
But, Kimmel continued, “I think McConnell blew it. This was his party’s best chance to make sure Trump never ran again. You remember the end of Lord of the Rings – when Frodo brought the ring all the way to the volcano – and then decided to not to throw it in? This was like a dumb version of that.”
Watch the whole monologue, including this bit, at the top of the page.