Jimmy Kimmel on RNC convention: ‘They’re very nervous about the midterms, and rightly so’

Late-night hosts roasted the Republican National Committee’s underattended “midterm convention” and attempts to ban the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, from 9/11 remembrances.

Jimmy Kimmel

On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host opened with the news that financial disclosures revealed how Donald Trump gave his aide and “least secret admirer” Natalie Harp a $45,000 cash gift for the holidays last December. Harp “is the woman who praises him, shows him his iPad, keeps him distracted, and in return he gave her a wad of cash – like you do a babysitter, like you do when a neighbor girl comes over and does a diaper change,” Kimmel quipped.

Trump also gave similarly sized cash gifts to two other young female staffers. “But I just want to say, before you rush to any judgment, there’s absolutely nothing unusual about an 80-year-old billionaire president giving the three young attractive women in his office 45,000 bucks each,” said Kimmel. “You’re the weird one for even thinking that, and shame on you.”

Kimmel then turned to the Republican National Committee’s unusual “midterm convention”, a two-day affair in Dallas aimed at convincing Americans to vote for a party led by a deeply unpopular president who has led the US into an increasingly unpopular war.

“They never had a midterm convention before, but Trump wanted one and so they’re having it,” Kimmel explained. “The president, he’s hyping this. He’s saying it’s ‘the greatest rally of them all’. He said it’s ‘really hot’, it’s ‘totally sold out’, which is funny because the RNC had to hand out a bunch of free tickets to this sold-out event.”

A large number of Republican lawmakers have also opted out of the convention due to “scheduling conflicts” and “not wanting to be anywhere near him right now”, Kimmel noted. “They’re very nervous about the midterms and rightly so. They are in serious danger of losing bigly.”

They’re in danger, in fact, of losing a Senate seat in Texas to the Democratic candidate James Talarico, whom Kimmel will interview on YouTube this week “under unusual circumstances” after a Trump-appointed federal regulator “threatened” his show.

The Daily Show

On the Daily Show, Michael Kosta also checked in on the RNC’s rare “midterm convention”. “Everyone is going to be there,” he said before several clips of Republican lawmakers claiming they would in fact not be in attendance, for excuses up to an including a Wednesday night high school football game, “stuff” that was already planned and a “can’t miss dove-hunting event”.

“Yeah, you can’t miss dove hunting!” Kosta quipped. “Eat lead, symbol of peace!”

In other tough news for Republicans, JD Vance told a crowd this week that the country was about to “celebrate” 25 years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. “Well, we’re not going to celebrate it, JD,” said Kosta. “‘Happy 9/11, everyone! I brought Rice Krispy towers!’

“We’re not going to celebrate 9/11, but we are going to commemorate 9/11,” he continued, “and one thing I always think about is how in the days after the attacks, President Bush made a genuine effort to defend Islam.”

Kosta played a clip from 2001 in which Bush reminded: “These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that. Islam is peace.”

“Boy, we really didn’t understand how good we had it, did we?” Kosta added. “I mean, I’m not saying this man was perfect, but that was a full, coherent, non-racist sentence. Hindsight, huh?

“The point is, back in 2001, President Bush was imploring the country not to lump all Muslims in with the terrorists who committed 9/11. Now it’s 25 years later so, how’s that going?”

Kosta then cut to a news clips about a petition to ban the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, from the city’s 9/11 ceremony, while Sean Hannity and Fox News’s Laura Ingraham criticized his signing of a proclamation declaring 11 September a city-wide day of remembrance.

“Look, I know nothing I say is going to convince the Mamdani haters, but if you ask me, the idea that 9/11 is about Muslims v America isn’t just wrong, it’s accepting Osama bin Laden’s vision of the world,” Kosta concluded. “And the fact that 25 years after 9/11, we have a New York-grown, Muslim mayor leading our remembrance proves to the world that al-Qaida didn’t win. New York won.

“So yes, everyone is welcome at the New York ceremony, and I would be there … but I’m going dove-hunting and it’s can’t-miss.”