Jimmy Kimmel has found a new favorite subject, and it arrived with a typo. The late-night host opened “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, by walking his audience through President Donald Trump’s multiday reaction to being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize — a reaction that included a roughly 600-word Truth Social post and a weekend follow-up in which the president spelled the award “Noble.”
The 2026 prize went to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, 85, a South African lawyer who served as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and spent years as an international judge. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced her as the winner on Friday, Oct. 9. Trump had other ideas about who should have been holding the medal.
A Screenshot That Blocked the Host
“What better way to deserve a Nobel Prize than attacking the woman who won it at midnight in a social media post that is twice as long as the Gettysburg Address,” Kimmel jabbed. He was not exaggerating for effect: excluding his name and title, Trump’s post runs 590 words. When a screenshot of it went up on screen for reference, it was so large that it blocked Kimmel from view.
In that post, Trump wrote that he had “settled eight Wars, and many other things” and that “in actuality, I should have won 8 Nobel Peace Prizes, not just 1.” By Kimmel’s count, the president worked in his eight-war tally seven separate times. Then came the Saturday, Oct. 10, encore: “I did not get the Noble Peace Prize. Wow,” Trump wrote, adding that he had settled eight wars and was close to ending or settling two more.
That misspelling sent Kimmel after Natalie Harp, the fiercely loyal aide who earns $150,000 a year as a special assistant to the president. “Do you think Natalie misspells the word ‘Nobel’ on purpose?” he asked.
Doing the Trump Nobel Math
Kimmel then rolled clips from a campaign rally in Syracuse, N.Y., on Friday, Oct. 9. “The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t,” Trump told the crowd, calling it an indelible stain on Norway and blasting “those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision.” Kimmel’s studio audience booed as the clip played, and the host deadpanned that he, too, was upset Trump hadn’t won.
He also pointed out the flaw in the target: the prize is chosen by the independent Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is not affiliated with the Norwegian government. “I hope you’re happy you made our baby cry,” Kimmel said of the country.
Trump’s arithmetic got the full treatment, too, after the president declared at the rally that there should have been eight Nobel prizes for each war. “Eight prizes for each war. He means he should have 64 Nobel prizes! Minus 8 for the war we started, that’s an even 56,” Kimmel joked, before declaring that imagining the world’s most powerful person behaving like “such a petty little b**** at all times” was the real wonder. He added that he wasn’t sure which was more alarming — that Trump was upset he didn’t win, or that he was surprised.
McConnell, Zacharia and an Ocean
If any American politician deserved a peace prize, Kimmel argued, it was Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whom he presented in a clip flashing peace signs from a van. Peace, the host said, is all the senator talks about.
The monologue also made room for the new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, a former host on Newsmax. “She has blond hair, she can do a thumbs up and … end of list, really,” said Kimmel. He had a nickname ready, too, after Trump floated naming the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean after himself: “Moby Dictator,” who, the host noted, cannot even manage a reflecting pool.
The feud is mutual. At a rally in Tennessee, Trump called Kimmel a loser after the host observed that one of the president’s events had empty seats — a point Kimmel cheerfully made again, noting there were empty seats even at the rally where Trump complained about it. Kimmel had also predicted on the eve of the announcement that the prize would go to someone else. He ended the Nobel bit with one more label for the president: “President Pumpkin McButthurt.”