The White House issued a sharp rebuke to late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, stating that his brain had "rotted" after he called for President Donald Trump to resign.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital that Kimmel's "case of Trump Derangement Syndrome is so advanced that it has completely rotted his peanut-sized brain." Ingle added that Kimmel is "far more entertaining when you’re laughing at him than with him, but unfortunately, his real talent is his failing ratings." He claimed that Ingle's statement took "more brain cells to write than the average Jimmy Kimmel joke."
The White House response followed a series of monologues by Kimmel after the midterm elections, during which he celebrated the Democratic "blue wave." In his Wednesday night monologue, Kimmel urged Trump to resign, dismissing the president's claim that Republicans would have performed better if he had been on the ballot.
"That is such crap," Kimmel stated. "You were on the ballot. You’re like dog hair. You’re on everything. You’ve infected every nook and cranny of our lives. You divided this country like no one ever divided it before. The only time you ever brought us together was yesterday, when we all teamed up to get rid of you!"
Kimmel also referred to the president as "Nappy Gilmore" and, showing an image of Trump appearing to sleep during a meeting, urged him to "resign."
"Quit already, just quit. Nobody wants you. Even you don’t want to be president anymore. Take that billion dollars’ worth of crypto, buy an island. Maybe Epstein’s island? Wouldn’t that be a perfect end to this story!" Kimmel said.
Earlier in the week, Ingle had provided a statement to Fox News Digital calling Kimmel a "no-talent loser who has beclowned himself with tanking ratings." The statement also asserted that Kimmel is "so devoid of actual talent that nobody with any commonsense would ever watch him unless it was to laugh at him."
Kimmel acknowledged this statement on his show, referring to Ingle as "Danny Dingle." "The last thing I want to do is tell you how to do your job, Danny Dingle, but today seems like a bad day for you to call me a loser," Kimmel responded.
Media commentator Christian Toto, editor of Hollywood in Toto, suggested that Kimmel's relationship with ABC might face increasing financial pressure. "Jimmy Kimmel long ago traded in comedy for activism. He's a DNC apparatchik, pushing party talking points and occasionally cracking wise along the way. This week's response to the midterms is nothing new," Toto told Fox News Digital. "What is new, though, is the tightrope he's walking with ABC. The network wants sizable budget cuts to keep the show afloat. The two sides will likely come up with a compromise, because, for ABC suits, the show's propaganda purposes overshadow financial concerns. But for how long?"