Trump Lashes Out at Jimmy Kimmel as Epstein Files Loom and Late-Night Becomes His Latest Battlefield The New York Times November 21, 2025

In a week already defined by a partial government funding lapse, a brutal three-day sell-off on Wall Street, and mounting speculation over the impending release of additional Jeffrey Epstein-related court documents, President Donald J. Trump found time for a familiar ritual: publicly demanding that a late-night comedian be fired.

The target, once again, was Jimmy Kimmel.

Late Wednesday, Mr. Trump posted an all-caps broadside on Truth Social after Mr. Kimmel devoted a portion of his ABC monologue to the president’s long and well-documented social ties to Mr. Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019.

“Trump hasn’t been this nervous about signing something since Don Jr.’s birth certificate,” Mr. Kimmel joked, referring to a congressional vote (427-1 in the House) that cleared the way for the public release of new Epstein files. The studio audience roared; within hours the clip had amassed more than 18 million views across platforms.

Mr. Trump’s response was immediate and unmistakable:

“Why does ABC Fake News keep Jimmy Kimmel, a man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS, on the air? … Get the bum off the air!!!”

The outburst marked at least the fourth time since January that the president has called for Mr. Kimmel’s removal from the network. Each previous attempt has produced the same result: a surge in viewership for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” a wave of supportive memes, and zero change in ABC’s programming schedule.

Television executives, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters, described the president’s latest demand as “background noise at this point.” One senior Disney/ABC source told The Times, “Every time he does this, Jimmy’s numbers go up. It’s the Streisand effect on steroids.”

The episode arrives at a particularly precarious moment for Mr. Trump. A continuing resolution to keep the government open expires at midnight Friday, and hard-line House Republicans have signaled they will not support another short-term patch without deep spending cuts. Markets have erased nearly $4 trillion in value since Election Day amid fears of policy gridlock and tariff chaos. And the Southern District of New York has confirmed that a new tranche of Epstein documents—potentially including flight logs, deposition excerpts, and previously redacted names—could be unsealed as early as next week.

Against that backdrop, late-night television has become one of the few arenas where the president faces sustained, unfiltered criticism he cannot easily mute. While Fox News anchors have largely avoided the Epstein story, the four major network hosts—Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon—have mentioned the financier’s name on air a combined 47 times in the past ten days alone, according to the media tracking firm Media Matters.

Political scientists see a pattern. “This is classic authoritarian-adjacent behavior,” said Dr. Rachel Blum, a professor of American politics at the University of Oklahoma. “When formal levers of power feel slippery—Congress, courts, markets—the impulse is to reach for the cultural ones. Late-night television is low-hanging fruit because it’s visible, it’s nightly, and it hurts in a way polls don’t.”

For his part, Mr. Kimmel addressed the president’s attack only obliquely on Thursday’s program. “I would respond directly,” he said, pausing for effect, “but I’m told there’s a 240-character limit on dignity.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The press office instead circulated a statement accusing ABC of “coordinated defamation” and promising “appropriate action at the appropriate time.”

Industry analysts predict little will change. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” remains ABC’s highest-rated program in the coveted 18-49 demographic, and Disney executives have privately told advertisers that the show is “bulletproof” as long as the current administration remains in office.

In an era when traditional presidential authority appears increasingly constrained, the spectacle of the world’s most powerful man waging weekly war against a late-night host has become its own bizarre barometer of influence. As one veteran Democratic strategist put it: “He can threaten to shut down the government, tank the stock market, and maybe even delay the Epstein files. But he can’t touch Jimmy Kimmel. That’s the part that actually seems to keep him up at night.”

For now, the monologue rolls on, the documents inch closer to daylight, and the most scrutinized relationship in American entertainment—between a comedian and the commander-in-chief—shows no sign of cooling.

As Mr. Kimmel signed off Thursday night, he offered a final, almost sympathetic shrug to the camera: “Look, I’d change the channel if I could. Unfortunately for him, 330 million Americans seem to enjoy the show.”