Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel became emotional while reacting to former President Trump’s win in Tuesday’s election.
“Let’s be honest, it was a terrible night last night,” Kimmel told his audience on Wednesday evening. “It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hardworking immigrants who make this country go.”
“Last night we had the choice between a prosecutor and a criminal and we chose the criminal. More than half of the country voted for Donald Trump. It turns out the election wasn’t rigged even though he said it was,” Jimmy Kimmel said.
With his voice breaking, Kimmel took a brief pause.
“Um, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism,” he continued, drawing applause from the studio audience. “For justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on social security.”
Kimmel, his eyes welling up with tears once again, added, “for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth and democracy and decency.”
Tuesday night “was a terrible night for everyone who voted against” Trump, Kimmel said, further adding, “And guess what? It was a bad night for everyone that voted for him, too, you just don’t realize it yet.”
Kimmel opened his show with a skit where he’s preparing to leave the U.S., unsure if he’s on Trump’s “list of enemies.” He joked about witnessing a long line of people waiting to vote, only to later hear an Arizona voter tell a reporter he’d vote for Trump because Kamala Harris hadn’t been on the Joe Rogan show.
“I was like where’s my passport,” Jimmy Kimmel said. He shared that his kids were upset about Trump’s win and recounted receiving anxious texts from friends who experienced sudden bouts of diarrhea. “Diarrhea was all-time high in the US yesterday,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel, a longtime critic of Trump, had just days before the election delivered an 18-minute monologue urging Republicans not to vote for the GOP candidate.
“If Trump has more of those votes, we are going to accept that, even if it doesn’t go our way,” he said at the time. “We won’t like it, but we’ll accept it, because that’s how it has to go.”
