‘Isn’t It Past Your Jail Time?’: Jimmy Kimmel Dunks on Donald Trump’s Oscars Review (Again)

It was a déjà vu moment for Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel, who on Sunday night during Hollywood’s biggest awards show hit back at former President Donald Trump again for panning Kimmel’s performance on social media.

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Before the award for Best Picture was announced, Kimmel, who was hosting the awards show for the fourth time, took the stage to say that he had just gotten a “review” and wanted to share it with the audience.

“Has there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars?” Kimmel read from his phone, sparking bemused laughter from the crowd. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.”

“Blah blah blah, make America great again,” Kimmel continued. “Now, see if you can guess which former President just posted that on Truth Social. Anyone? No?”

As was obvious, Kimmel was in fact reading from Trump’s latest screed on the social media site the former President launched after being banned from Facebook and Twitter in 2021. In the post, Trump also described the Academy Awards as “a really bad politically correct show, tonight, and for years—Disjointed, boring, and very unfair.”

“Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still… Isn’t it past your jail time?” Kimmel quipped—referring to the numerous legal charges the former President faces, ranging from election interference to financial fraud—as the star-studded audience erupted in cheers.

Kimmel’s wife and Oscars producer Molly McNearney actually tried to talk him out of doing the bit, she revealed in a backstage tell-all with Variety: “I said, ‘I don’t want to give Trump airtime in the Oscars. This is the one time we don’t have to talk about him. We talk about him every night’ … But he had a glimmer in his eye, and he said, ‘I got this.’”

The joke ended up serving as a callback to an exchange between the comedian and the then-President in 2018, when Trump tweeted: “Lowest rated Oscars in HISTORY,” the morning after the show, which was also hosted by Kimmel. “Problem is, we don’t have Stars anymore - except your President (just kidding, of course)!”

“Thanks, lowest rated President in HISTORY,” Kimmel replied on Twitter. Trump left office as the least popular U.S. President in polling firm Gallup’s History of tracking approval ratings, and last month, Trump ranked last among his peers in a scoring of “presidential greatness” as determined by over 100 presidential historians.