Kimmel Breaks Down In Tears, Calls on Cruz and Abbott to ‘Admit You Made a Mistake’ About Guns: ‘These Are Our Children!’

Jimmy Kimmel broke down while addressing the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, questioning how tragedies like this “make sense to anyone.”

“Here we are again, on another day of mourning in this country,” said Kimmel, who did not welcome a live audience Wednesday night. “Once again, we grieve for the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and whose families have been destroyed.”

The host became immediately emotional at the start of his Wednesday show, where he addressed the shooting for the first time as his Tuesday episode had been taped prior to the tragedy at Robb Elementary School.

Kimmel spoke of the shooting, which saw 18-year-old gunman, suspected to be Salvador Ramos, kill 19 children and two adults, for roughly six minutes on Wednesday.

“While our leaders on the right — the Americans in Congress and at Fox News and these other outlets — warn us not to politicize this. They immediately criticize our President for even speaking about doing something to stop it,” Kimmel said  “Because they don’t want to speak about it. Because they know what they’ve done and they know what they haven’t done, and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug.”

The host lamented that the nation’s “cowardly” leaders are not listening to their constituents, who support “keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children,” and are instead “listening to the NRA.”

“They’re listening to the people who write them checks, who keep them in power because that’s the way politics work,” he said. “That’s the idea we settle on, that’s what we tell ourselves, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Not for this.”

The late-night host directly addressed Texas Republican Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, as well as Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), asking them to consider gun control laws, as “This is the only country where this keeps happening.”

“I would like to say to Ted Cruz, the human being, and Governor Abbott, and everyone, it’s ok to admit you made a mistake,” he said. “In fact, it’s not just ok, it’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state.”

He continued, “It takes a big person to do something like that. It takes a brave person to do something like that. And do I think these men are brave people? No, I don’t. But man, I would love it if they surprised me.”

Kimmel also noted that while polls indicate Americans support “common-sense gun laws,” the Senate has blocked gun control legislation that was passed by the house in 2021, including The ​​Enhanced Background Checks Act and the Bipartisan Background Checks Act.

“This is a time to be loud — and to stay loud — and not stop until we fix this,” he said after noting that this is not the time for “moments of sadness.”

“Some people say this is a mental health problem. Others say it’s a gun problem,” he continued. “It is both, and it can be both. So let’s work on both of those.”

There have been 27 school shootings so far in 2022, prompting Kimmel to emotionally ask, “How does this make sense to anyone? These are our children!”

“So if you care about this — and we all do, doesn’t matter what party we vote for, we all care about this — we need to make sure that we do everything we can… to make sure that unless they do something drastic that let’s make sure that not one of any of these politicians ever holds office again.”

Watch above, via ABC.