Jimmy Kimmel: Trump Was Elected Due to the Same ‘Liberals’ Who Are Always ‘Viciously Attacking Comedians’

Kimmel called Trump a "comic-book villain" who is still in power in part because of backlash to cancel culture.

Jimmy Kimmel thinks there’s a connection between policing comedy and Donald Trump being reelected. According to the late night host, the same “liberals” who have been “viciously attacking comedians” and the freedom of speech in comedy are the ones to blame for Trump’s return to power.

Kimmel told Rolling Stone that there is a “manufactured” emphasis from the left on what comedy should or shouldn’t be about. “I think a lot of the outrage is completely manufactured, and it’s like, a lot of these people who are angry aren’t really angry,” Kimmel said. “I think these liberals who’ve done such a good job of viciously attacking comedians are a big part of the reason why Trump is the president right now.”

Kimmel added of cancel culture in comedy as a whole, “There’s no black and white when it comes to comedy. There is no line. The line is different for every person. Dave Chappelle can say things that somebody else might not be able to. I don’t think anybody should be canceled. I really don’t. I’m not the kind of person who will cut someone out of my life just because we don’t believe the same thing.”

Hasan Minhaj, Rowan Atkinson, Jerrod Carmichael, and Jerry Seinfeld have all also pushed back on the “extreme left” that have seemingly mandated that comedy should be politically correct. Kimmel is now adding his perspective that the liberal emphasis on PC-ness has had drastic repercussions that led all the way to the White House.

“I think most comedians have a strong sense of justice, and he [Trump] violates that so frequently,” Kimmel said. “I know we should be hardened to it by now, but I’m not. It is shocking to me; it seems like a comic-book villain. He seems like the kind of character that would flame out after a few years, but the fact that he’s still with us is remarkable.”

Minhaj previously told IndieWire that cancel culture is about “freedom of speech being conflated with acceptable speech,” saying in 2022, “What’s happening right now is there is the idea that is your First Amendment right to freedom of speech: ‘Am I allowed to say this?’ versus ‘Is it socially acceptable to say this?’ And those two ideas are being conflated.”

Minhaj continued, “Everybody has the right to say whatever they want, politically, culturally, they can scream out racial epithets, if they so please. Is it in good taste to do those things? There is just a cultural conversation happening around the Overton window of what is socially acceptable to say, in which places. That’s really it. We’re just having a conversation of, ‘Hey, you can talk like that. Is it cool to talk like that on stage at the Oscars, in a basement at the Comedy Cellar, at Radio City Music Hall, on Facebook where your mom can also see it?’ We’re just having a conversation about decorum and where it’s appropriate to say those things. And I think that’s OK, and I think we’ll hopefully figure it out.”