Jimmy Kimmel is open to having President Trump appear as a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
The late-night host made the surprising revelation on Wednesday at NYA Studios during a panel discussion with pop culture moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs called “Bloomberg Screentime.”
“I would love to have Trump on the show,” Kimmel told Bloomberg’s Lucas Show. “Yeah…I’ll ask.”
In response, White House representative Abigail Jackson told Page Six, “To react to what Jimmy Kimmel says, you need to watch his show, and you need to do more interesting things like watch paint dry.”
This is not Trump’s first appearance on Kimmel’s show, as he previously appeared as a guest in May 2016.
But the two sides have been at odds for years, and the commander-in-chief recently took delight in the comedian’s talk show being suspended on ABC over a joke about Charlie Kirk’s death.
Kimmel quipped on the Sept. 11 episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The man who killed the conservative activist was likely a member of the MAGA gang, a term referring to supporters of President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.
“Great news for America: The Jimmy Kimmel Show is being canceled after ratings problems,” the 79-year-old president wrote via Truth Social in September following Kimmel’s suspension.
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what they had to do. Kimmel has zero talent and has worse ratings than Colbert if that’s possible.”
However, after public outcry from viewers and free speech advocates, Kimmel returned to television.
In response to the decision, President Trump threatened to sue ABC, claiming that the hosts were just “another arm” of the Democratic National Committee and for “seriously illegal campaign contributions.”
Kimmel said during Wednesday’s panel that the joke about Kirk was “intentionally and… maliciously misrepresented,” but defended why he covers politics on his late-night show in the first place.
“I was always interested in politics, but I was never a particularly political person…Maybe I didn’t need to be that way back then,” he explained.
“I think this is very different from the situation we’re in right now. And I think my job is to talk about the news of the day, and these are the big stories of the day almost every day.”
