Kimmel: Politics Have Become Comedy After Trump’s Greenland Remarks

Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesday that comedy has become political because politics themselves have become comedic, as he discussed President Trump’s latest comments about Greenland.

Kimmel told viewers, “We didn’t come to them, they came to us,” and said the show’s turn to political material reflected the news cycle. He read a notification he said he received — “Trump says he will not use force to acquire Greenland” — and added, “I would argue that politics is all comedy now.” He also quipped, “No one solves a problem that he manufactured completely on his own better than Donald J. Trump,” and called the president’s speeches “something to behold” that were “not what you might call a charm offensive — it was offensive, yes, but very little charm.”

Other late-night hosts also riffed on the remarks. Jimmy Fallon said President Trump delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and joked that, after calling Greenland “a piece of ice,” “the people of Greenland called Trump a piece of something else.” Seth Meyers noted that Trump had repeatedly referred to Greenland as “Iceland” and, jokingly, “Trumpland.”

Kimmel suggested the speeches will be studied for years and framed late-night’s political focus as a response to events: “we didn’t come to them, they came to us,” he said, underscoring that comedians are reacting to the material coming from politics rather than choosing it first.

Key Topics

Culture, Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump, Greenland, World Economic Forum, Jimmy Fallon