Jimmy Kimmel Hits Back at Donald Trump Over Latest Call For His Firing: ‘I’ll Go When You Go… Until Then… Quiet Piggy!’

On the same day in which he accused six Democratic lawmakers of “seditious behavior” that he said was “punishable by death” and shared someone else’s post that called for the Congress members’ hanging, Donald Trump once again lashed out at his late night nemesis Jimmy Kimmel.

It started with Trump’s Truth Social post on Thursday (Nov. 20) in which he asked why “ABC Fake News” keeps Kimmel, “a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air?,” claiming the network’s (or Kimmel’s?) coverage of him is “totally biased.” He ended by demanding, “Get the bum of the air!!!”

The president, ensnared in particularly bruising media cycle whipped up by the back-and-forth over the release of the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein — in which Trump is named more than 1,500 times, more than anyone else — appeared to be spun up again about Kimmel’s relentless jokes about the two men’s close ties.

So, on Thursday night’s show Kimmel doubled-down once again, sloughing off the latest attack from the leader of the free world on his late night comedy show. Kimmel opened his monologue by admitting that he’s “lost count” at this point of how many times Trump has called for him to be pulled off the air, revealing that he woke up that morning to his wife telling him that he was on Trump’s mind again.

“She’s got her phone. She goes, ‘Um, Trump tweeted you should be fired again,’” Kimmel said she told him. “I was like, ‘Oh.’ And then I went downstairs and made bagels for the kids… Talk about a snowflake, this guy. Every five weeks, he flips out and wants me fired. If you got this many threats from a neighbor, you’d have no problem getting a restraining order. The judge would be like, ‘Yeah, sounds like the guy’s nuts.’”

Kimmel read the president’s post to boos from the audience, noting that the late night missive went up at 12:49 a.m., just 11 minutes after his show ended on the East Coast. “Which is nice, he watches us live. Hi, Mr. President! How are you? Thanks for watching us on TV instead of on YouTube, we appreciate that. And I’ll tell you, it’s viewers like you who keep us on the air, ironically,” he joked.

And then Kimmel likely heaped more fuel to Trump’s fire by saying, “It’s also sweet that, even in the middle of the biggest sex scandal in the history of the American presidency, he takes precious time on the toilet to post about our show. Keeps saying we have bad ratings. And you should listen to him, because if anyone knows about bad ratings, it’s that guy,” he added, before rolling out a montage of clips with reports about Trump’s plunging polling numbers.

Trump’s latest broadside against Kimmel comes after ABC’s decision in September to pull Kimmel off the air for a few days after Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, issued a warning to stations carrying the show following criticism about Kimmel’s comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Back on the air the next week, Kimmel continued tweaking the president in his nightly monologues and it appears to have again incensed Trump, who has also called for other late night hosts to be fired in seeming pique over their jabs at his administration.

Kimmel pulled not punches again on Thursday, laying down the gauntlet, saying, “Mr. President, I admire your tenacity. If you’re watching tonight, which I presume you are, how about this: I’ll go when you go, OK?,” before adding another teasingly disparaging nickname to his endless pile of alternate titles for the commander in chief. “We’ll be a team. Let’s ride off into the sunset together like Butch Cassidy and the Suntan Kid. And until then, if I may borrow a phrase from you: Quiet, piggy.”

The latter was a pointed reference to the insult Trump hurled at a reporter on Air Force One after she asked him a question about Epstein, with Trump snapping at Bloomberg News journalist Catherine Lucey, “Quiet! Quiet, piggy!“

After swift passage in the House and Senate, Trump signed legislation on Wednesday ordering the Justice Department to release documents related to Epstein. That came after multiple attempts by Trump to kill the legislation before changing course following the defection of several Republican House members urging their release, including such typically MAGA faithful stalwarts as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.

The Justice Department now has 30 days to release the files, which Kimmel suggested could make for a “very merry Christmas indeed. I have a prediction for the next 30 days: I think we’re going to see Trump do some of the craziest s–t ever.”

Watch Kimmel’s monologue below.