Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel needed only two words to answer President Donald Trump’s explanation for the Republican midterm losses, and the cheers, whistles and applause followed.
Kimmel, 58, went after the president again on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, devoting part of his ABC show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat, which aired Sunday, Nov. 8.
Trump told Douthat, “I’m a religious person, so in theory, I go to heaven,” and, “I don’t want to go to hell.” Kimmel had a flat reply ready. “Well, you are going to hell,” he said, before invoking Trump and Satan shacking up on Season 27 of “South Park.” “You are going to open your eyes and pray you’re watching South Park. You will be in hell,” Kimmel said.
A ‘Peanut-Sized Brain’ Read Aloud
Kimmel then read out a statement he attributed to White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, calling him “Davis Dingle” on air. “Jimmy Kimmel’s case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is so advanced that it has completely rotted his peanut-sized brain. He’s far more entertaining when you’re laughing at him than with him. But unfortunately, his real talent is his failing ratings,” the statement said. Kimmel’s response: “You know what? You should enter a rap battle spitting dope rhymes like that.”
He laid out two paths for the president — checking out at Mar-a-Lago, or going “nuts like Jack Nicholson in The Shining” — and described Trump as “a raccoon in a duffel bag.” “I don’t think we’re prepared for the amount of insanity that this drama queen president is about to pump on us,” Kimmel said.
‘You’re Like Dog Hair’
The two-word message came on the Wednesday, Nov. 4 episode, a day after Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the Nov. 3 elections. “And, in the face of defeat, he is doing what he does best, blaming everyone other than him,” Kimmel said. “He absolved himself of all responsibility. He wrote, ‘I wasn’t on the ballot. And if I was, we would have won in a landslide.’ Oh, shut up. Just shut up, please.”
He called the not-on-the-ballot theory “such crap.” “I mean, give us a break for one day and shut that ridiculous mouth. You are such a spoiled child. Did you ever learn anything about manners or sportsmanship or simple common decency? Nothing is ever your fault,” he said. Kimmel pressed the point. “You were on the ballot. You’re like dog hair. You’re on everything,” Kimmel said.
Republicans lost nearly everywhere outside the deepest red territory, Kimmel said, reading the defeats back one handpicked candidate at a time: Darline Graham, whom Trump picked to run in South Carolina; Ken Paxton, whom he backed in Texas; and Vivek Ramaswamy, on whom he went all in in Ohio. Kimmel said Trump ran Thom Tillis out of the Senate, and told the president Republicans would still hold the Ohio Senate seat they lost Nov. 3 had he not chosen Vice President JD Vance as his running mate.
Trump infected every nook and cranny of American life and divided the country like no one before him, Kimmel said, allowing him one moment of unity — Nov. 3, when voters banded together to get rid of him. The audience burst into noise and clapping again.
A Blue Tsunami and a Red Wedding
Kimmel called the result a blue tsunami on his Nov. 3 episode and joked that the Red Wedding had begun, a nod to the massacre scene in “Game of Thrones.” Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats, and several states, including Texas and Kansas, went blue for the first time in decades. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is set to lose his post, with Democrat Hakeem Jeffries expected to replace him.
“Pod Save America” hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor were his guests that night, and Favreau called the outcome the beginning of the end of the Trump era. The cheers did not settle Kimmel’s nerves. He said he has studied the president long enough to doubt he will go away gently, and worries Trump will get “even crazier.”
‘Nappy Gilmore’ and an Island Exit
Kimmel prescribed resignation for the 80-year-old president, whom he nicknamed “Nappy Gilmore,” telling him to quit already because nobody wants him in the job, not even Trump himself. “The only party he leads is the slumber party, and he’s the only person in it,” Kimmel said. His exit plan quip: take a billion dollars’ worth of crypto and buy an island, with Epstein’s Island his suggestion.
Vance taking the oath in Trump’s place does not worry him, Kimmel said, because a man who went from calling Trump the American Hitler to calling him the greatest president of his generation can flip back. He described the vice president as a very good flipper with no spine. The lesson of the election cycle, Kimmel told viewers, is about loyalty — and Trump, he said, holds no allegiance to anyone or anything, a Democrat who was never really a Democrat and then a Republican who isn’t a Republican.