On October 16, 2025, late-night television took a sharp, satirical turn as Jimmy Kimmel and his fellow hosts zeroed in on the ever-blurring line between reality and political theater in America. Their monologues, laced with biting humor and stinging social commentary, reflected a nation grappling with what Kimmel himself called a “stupid time to be alive.” The headlines of the day—ranging from President Donald Trump’s apparent susceptibility to cable news influence, to leaked offensive messages from a Young Republicans group chat, to the return of a flamboyant “Drag Queen Storytime”—offered plenty of fodder for late-night’s most prominent voices.
Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, didn’t mince words as he opened his Wednesday night show. “It’s hard to imagine, but one day this avalanche of insanity we get buried under, each day deeper and deeper than the next, will one day be taught in history books in every place other than Florida,” he quipped, according to The Guardian. The sense of incredulity was palpable, as Kimmel highlighted recent revelations about President Trump’s decision-making process—a process, it seems, heavily informed by the cable news cycle.
According to a report cited by The Daily Beast, Trump’s inner circle has grown “alarmed” at the extent to which Fox News has shaped the president’s perceptions of world events. Kimmel, never one to shy away from a punchline, joked that Trump officials became concerned when the president asked if he could get a reverse mortgage on the White House and a Terry Bradshaw walk-in tub. The absurdity didn’t stop there. Trump reportedly wanted to send the National Guard into Portland, Oregon, after seeing Fox News footage of the city’s 2020 Black Lives Matter protests—mistakenly believing the unrest was happening in real time.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, had to set the record straight for the president. As Trump recounted to NBC News, he asked her, “Well wait a minute. Am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?” Kimmel’s retort was swift: “Yes, dum-dum. You are—you’re on a five-year delay from the rest of us.” The segment, while played for laughs, underscored a deeper concern: the president of the United States, Kimmel noted, was “being briefed on world events by the same source as everyone at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport Chili’s To Go.”
But the late-night host’s critique didn’t end with Trump’s television habits. Kimmel also addressed the broader issue of misinformation, particularly the narrative around antifa and alleged chaos in American cities. On Fox News, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that “thousands” of protesters had “pre-bought, pre-put together” signs—implying a shadowy, well-funded antifa operation. Bondi promised, “We’re going to get to the funding of antifa, we’re going to get to the root of antifa, and we are going to find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos in Portland and all these other cities across our country.”
Kimmel, with his trademark sarcasm, shot back: “And if we can’t find them, we’re going to pretend that we did.” He flatly stated that there was no chaos in Portland, Chicago, or Los Angeles, arguing that claims of unrest were being fabricated as a pretense for potential military intervention. In a humorous call to action, he invited viewers to submit videos of the calm in their cities under the hashtag #showmeyourhellhole, hoping to “educate our president on what is happening in the country that he runs.”
The night’s monologue took another turn as Kimmel addressed the leak of thousands of messages from a Young Republicans group chat, which revealed a torrent of offensive language and bigotry. The messages, as reported by Politico, included slurs, jokes about enslavement, and disparaging remarks targeting Jewish people, women, Black people, and other minorities. “If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr [for real],” one member wrote. The group’s minimum age was 18, but some participants were as old as 40, a fact that didn’t escape Kimmel’s comedic lens: “Cause nothing says young like getting your first routine colonoscopy.”
Other late-night hosts joined in the fray. Stephen Colbert, on The Late Show, lampooned the state of politics nine months into Trump’s second term, joking, “it feels like we’re about to give birth to an unvaccinated porcupine.” Colbert also highlighted the peculiar culinary preferences of the former president, citing Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters’ revelation that Trump likes to combine McDonald’s hamburgers and filet-o-fish sandwiches. “Imagine being stuck on a 12-hour flight with an old man hot-boxing you with filet-o-farts,” Colbert quipped.
Meanwhile, Kimmel’s show wasn’t all politics and outrage. In a bid to “build a bridge and join hands through literature,” he revived the popular “Drag Queen Storytime” segment, inviting famed drag queen Trixie Mattel to read Eric Trump’s new book, Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation, to a group of children. The segment, which first began in 2023 with Mattel reading Senator Ted Cruz’s Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America, was brought back after Eric Trump’s book received mixed reviews. Kimmel’s blend of satire and inclusivity offered a rare moment of levity and unity amid the night’s otherwise pointed critiques.
The juxtaposition of these segments—sharp political satire, exposure of bigotry, and playful attempts at cultural bridge-building—painted a vivid picture of the current American media landscape. The late-night hosts, in their own irreverent ways, provided commentary not just on the day’s headlines but on the underlying anxieties and absurdities shaping public discourse.
As Kimmel observed, the events and attitudes dominating the news cycle today may one day be the stuff of history books—except, he joked, in places like Florida. For now, though, television remains both a mirror and a magnifying glass, reflecting the nation’s divisions and amplifying its contradictions. Through humor, outrage, and the occasional drag queen, late night continues to hold a funhouse mirror up to American politics—reminding viewers that, sometimes, laughter really is the only way to cope.
