Trump Swipes ‘Horrible’ Jimmy Kimmel As He Hands Out Kennedy Center Medals to Kiss and Sylvester Stallone

President Donald Trump took a swipe at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel while handing out Kennedy Center medals in the Oval Office Saturday.

The honorees this year are Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, KISS, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford.

Trump touted the fact that he would be the first president ever to host the event at the Kennedy Center Awards ceremony on Sunday. He also ripped Kimmel — one of his favorite targets — and called him “horrible.”

“I look forward to celebrating with all of you at the Kennedy Center tomorrow. And it’s going to be something that I believe, and I’m going to make a prediction: This will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done. And they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings. But there’s nothing like what’s going to happen tomorrow night.”

Trump continued:

I just want to thank you all, I want to congratulate you all, and I want to thank the media — they’ve treated this with such great respect. We very much appreciate it. Now we’re going to go to the State Department with Secretary of State Rubio and have a special event, something which. was never done before, but we’ve never had a president hosting the awards before. This is a first.

I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know? They’ll say, “He was horrible, he was terrible. It was a horrible situation —” No, I think we’ll do fine. I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible. Some of these people — if I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.

His shot at Kimmel comes after the ABC star was briefly suspended in September for implying the man who killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was a Trump supporter.

The comment led to swift pushback from Nexstar and Sinclair, which control a large chunk of ABC affiliates, and FCC Chair Brendan Carr on September 17 said he felt Kimmel’s comment warranted consequences.

Hours later, Kimmel was suspended — leading to some critics saying ABC and Disney caved to Trump’s administration; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that the president put “pressure” on ABC to suspend Kimmel. The comic’s suspension was lifted on September 22.

In August, Trump announced that he planned to host Kennedy Center awards.

“It’s going to be a big evening. I’ve been asked to host,” Trump said then. “I said, ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’ ‘Sir, you’ll get much higher ratings.’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m president of United States, I won’t do it.’ They said, ‘Please.’ And then Susie Wiles said to me, ‘Sir, why can’t you host?’ I said, ‘Okay, Susie, I’ll do it.’ That’s the power she’s got.”

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