Donald Trump cut through the confusion about Jimmy Kimmel, talk-show host and renegade. “He said a horrible thing about a great gentleman named Charlie Kirk,” our nation’s chief executive told the press. Kimmel’s enemies had stuck to the comedian’s actual words and tried to act like these were a firing offense. But Trump doesn’t fumble. He simply made up an offense and went with that.
On the other hand, no. Jimmy Kimmel didn’t say anything mean about Charlie Kirk, the assassinated right-wing activist. Kimmel was being snide about MAGA and he passed bad information. His words: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” That’s not the same as saying the killer was MAGA, but it’s way too close. Kimmel spoke as if everybody knew the kid was MAGA and now here were these clowns hitting new lows because of their desperate attempts at characterizing, etc.
The day before Kimmel’s remark, Utah’s governor told the news shows that the alleged killer had a trans girlfriend and a “leftist ideology.” The day after Kimmel’s remark, we read what the boy said about Charlie Kirk’s “hatred.” Those are some big facts. The conniving broadcaster described by MAGA would’ve known to lay off. Kimmel charged ahead, presumably because of partisan brain. Perched at the end of a very long limb, he opened his mouth and misled the public about a furiously discussed topic, namely which side got the blame for an assassination that had happened five days before. He ought to apologize and say he knows what his remark sounded like and that he won’t give any more reckless false impressions during a difficult time. On the other hand, his remark wasn’t a plain untruth. Trump said a plain untruth about Kimmel and conservatives don’t even notice.
“He said a horrible thing about a great gentleman named Charlie Kirk.” Yeah, what horrible thing? The 29 words say nothing about Kirk himself, and on the day of the assassination Kimmel posted this thought: “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to gun violence.” Trump’s got nothing; he’s lying.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s chief of the Federal Communications Commission, says Kimmel and his bunch were lying “about the nature of one of the most significant, newsworthy, public interest acts that we’ve seen in a long time.” Trump lied about Carr’s significant, newsworthy, public interest act by saying what he did about Kimmel. But Carr doesn’t mind. The Center for American Rights just filed a complaint with the FCC because of the Kimmel remark. “That sort of reckless indifference or willful defiance of facts is incompatible with ABC’s public interest obligations,” the complaint says. But one gathers that this indifference or defiance can work just fine with chief executive duties.
“He said a horrible thing about a great gentleman named Charlie Kirk,” Trump tells us. No, Kimmel made it sound like a non-MAGA suspected shooter was actually MAGA. He has some explaining to do. But he did get something right, the “doing everything they can to score political points” part. MAGA’s using the death to make its enemies shut up. Whenever Brendan Carr talks about the truth, you know he’s lying. That’s because he supports Donald Trump, who will lie about whether a man insulted an assassination victim.