PRESUMPTIVE GOP nominee Donald Trump has ratcheted up the rhetorical haymakers against Jimmy Kimmel and news anchor George Stephanopoulos, with the former president taking to Truth Social after watching the Oscars and This Week on ABC.
“Has there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars," Trump wrote from his phone on Sunday evening.
"His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something that he is not, and never can be.
"Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos.
"He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous. Blah. Blah. Blah. Make America Great Again.”
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Kimmel, who has morphed into the kind of Democratic activist you could find on MSNBC, shared on Monday that he was instructed not to read Trump's post but defied orders and did it anyway.
“They’re like, ‘You’ve got a little bit of time’ and I was like, ‘I’m reading the Trump tweet,’ and they’re like, ‘No, no, don’t read that. "[I was like] ‘Yes, I am,'" the former Man Show host shared.
He did not elaborate on who specifically asked him not to read the post.
Upon reading Trump's opinion to the millions watching at home, Kimmel quipped, "Isn't it past your jail time?" - a reference to the 91 felony counts against Trump across four trials he's facing this year.
The Hollywood crowd, as expected, roared.
Kimmel was once seen as fairly apolitical. He even once had Trump on his program during the 2016 presidential campaign in what was a friendly chat that included the former Apprentice star reading a children's book.
But since Trump won the 2016 election almost eight years ago, Kimmel has become a one-trick pony in mocking Trump and Republicans on a nightly basis while bear-hugging any Democrat who appears on his program.
As for Stephanopoulos, Trump's ire came from an explosive interview the former Clinton attack dog conducted with Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC).
The This Week host pressed Mace on how she as a victim of rape could possibly support Donald Trump, where a New York jury found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room decades ago.
Trump has vehemently denied the allegation while pointing out that Carroll could not even recall the year the event took place.
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It should also be noted that Stephanopoulos worked for President Clinton for years while he was accused of sexual abuse and rape by several women.
Clinton also settled a sexual harassment suit for $850,000 for a woman who once worked for him as Arkansas governor, Paula Jones.
Stephanopoulos also contributed to the Clinton Foundation to the tune of $75,000 while serving as ABC's most senior anchor, an obvious conflict of interest that would get someone fired in the past. He only apologized after he got caught.
For its part, ABC not only didn't suspend or reprimand him in any capacity but even put out a statement saying it fully stood behind him.
So it's quite rich to hear Stephanopoulos go down this road so piously.
If Trump taking to social media to rail against late-night talk show hosts and members of the media by assigning derogatory nicknames sounds familiar, it's because it's a classic Trump tactic.
He's been doing it to political opponents ever since announcing his run for the presidency in June 2015: Low-Energy Jeb, Little Marco, Crooked Hillary, Lyin' Ted, Pocahontas (Elizabeth Warren), Crazy Maxine Waters, Ron DeSanctimonious, Crazy Joe Biden...
If you cross Trump, a nickname will quickly follow. And for the most part, they stick.
This tactic of inserting himself into seemingly every big event in a quest for attention or hijacking a storyline has its pros and cons.
The upside is that these attacks reinforce an image Trump attempts to regularly project: A fighter, albeit of the keyboard warrior variety, and anything but a typical, polished, phony politician.
Going after someone like Stephanopoulos, who is simply another ardent Democrat with a microphone and program, or Kimmel, who is a distant third in the late-night ratings race, is just Trump attacking unpopular institutions and the people in them.
The downside, of course, is Trump may come across as petty and petulant when he should be laser-focused on his policy messaging ahead of the 2024 election: Inflation, the economy, crime in American cities, immigration, the border, murderous thugs coming across it unabated, foreign policy, war, trade, and domestic energy production.
Trump picking fights with Kimmel and Stephanopoulos may not, outside of his base, come across as presidential while reminding voters of an anything-but-normal presidency that seemed to contain these kinds of social media posts daily.
It should also be noted that Trump's reach on Truth Social is a fraction of what he once had on X, formerly Twitter, where he had close to 89 million followers.
On Truth, he only has 6.68 million.
No matter. Not many people are talking about the Oscars and its winners now. But the Trump post on Kimmel and Stephanopoulos continues to grab headlines and gain traction.
It worked in 2016. Trump rewrote the book on how politicians use social media to their advantage at no cost.
In 2020, when Covid depressed the nation for months and even years, perhaps the barbs were out of touch with public sentiment.
Will it work again in 2024? After nine years and thousands of Trump posts, it likely won't move the needle either way.
There isn't a person in the country who doesn't have an opinion on Donald Trump. This is his brand. And when the salvos keep coming, at this point the unexpected is completely expected.
Joe Concha is a Fox News contributor who joined the network in 2020.
He provides commentary and insight on current events on the Fox News and Fox Business Network, appearing regularly on Fox & Friends, The Big Saturday Show, Varney & Co., and Outnumbered.
