Donald Trump on Monday attacked late-night hosts, including Jimmy Kimmel, then asked a question that had critics wondering if the former president knows what decade it is.
“Where’s Johnny Carson?” Trump asked at a Pennsylvania event as he railed against the current crop of late-night talk show hosts on network TV. “Bring back Johnny.”
Carson hosted “The Tonight Show” for 30 years, and his name became synonymous with the format. But he left the public eye almost completely after he retired in 1992. He died in 2005. Jay Leno and then Conan O’Brien were hosts of the show after Carson retired and before Jimmy Fallon took over in 2014.
Trump attacked Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Fallon, although he didn’t mention them by name.
“These three guys, they’re so bad, all three of ’em, all three of ’em” he said.
Trump recalled his own 2016 appearance on “The Tonight Show,” when Fallon mussed up his hair. Trump on Monday attacked Fallon as “weak and pathetic” for later apologizing for the moment, which critics said had served to humanize Trump.
But Trump saved his harshest words for Kimmel, host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” with whom he has been feuding for ages and tried to have censored during his presidential administration. Trump is apparently still smarting from an unplanned moment during the Oscars earlier this year, which Kimmel hosted.
During the ceremony, Trump ripped into Kimmel via a post on his Truth Social website. Kimmel then read that message live during the broadcast and joked that he was surprised Trump was still watching.
“Isn’t it past your jail time?” Kimmel cracked, getting one of the biggest reactions of the night and leading to one of the most viral moments of the Oscars.
But Trump on Monday tried to rewrite history by changing Kimmel’s punchline.
“I think he said something like, ‘ha ha ha, he thinks he bothers me,’ or some crap like that,” Trump said.
Trump then attacked all three network hosts again.
“It’s supposed to be comedy,” he said. “It’s hatred.”
Critics were quick to remind the former president that ― even decades ago ― Carson also mocked Trump, including this moment:
Still others offered an answer to Trump’s question wondering where Carson is:
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