Jimmy Kimmel, who’s proven himself to be even less funny than usual without the help of a laugh track or a live audience who already agrees with his liberal politics, has apologized – and by that, I mean not really – to Vice President Mike Pence after his show aired fake news mocking Pence for allegedly delivering empty boxes of protective gear to a rehab center.
Which, it turns out, was completely untrue.
Here’s the backstory: last week, Kimmel went on a rant making fun of Pence over a video in which the vice president was seen helping unload a bunch of boxes of PPE for a medical facility. In the clip, one of the delivery men mentioned to the VP that some of the boxes in the truck were empty. Pence, in an obvious joke, asked if he could carry the empty boxes for the camera. Here’s that full, unedited clip:
Here's an unedited version of @VP Pence delivering PPE to Woodbine Rehab Center. The clip from @JimmyKimmel and sent viral by @mattmfm & others is quite deceptive. Pence is clearly joking when he talks about empty boxes for the camera, & shuts the van doors right after the quip. pic.twitter.com/HyV8iBiljS
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) May 8, 2020
Kimmel blasted Pence on his “show,” accusing Pence of literally staging the PPE delivery with empty boxes for “publicity” and suggesting it was symbolic of how the Trump administration has handled the entire COVID-19 pandemic.
“Mike Pence pretending to carry empty boxes of PPEs into a hospital is the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he's doing: A big box of nothing, delivering another box of nothing," Kimmel said.
But it turns out, Pence actually was helping deliver masks and gowns to medical staff, and Kimmel was…well, just plain wrong. So, naturally, the liberal late night host apologized, and in the most backhanded, insulting way possible.
“How anyone can tell when Mike Pence is joking, I don’t know,” Kimmel began in a new clip posted Tuesday, sarcastically directing it at "the truth-loving, profoundly-principled" Pence.
By his vice majesty’s request, my official on-air apology to the truth-loving, profoundly-principled @VP Mike Pence... #JimmyKimmelLiveFromHisHouse #StayHome pic.twitter.com/8SWGW8aLku
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 12, 2020
“I didn’t know because I'd only watched part of the video. Turns out there were 29 minutes of this on C-SPAN that apparently indicate he was joking about carrying the empty boxes for the cameras, which again, I didn't know because I do not have the mental endurance it requires to watch Mike Pence deliver boxes for 29 minutes on C-SPAN," he said.
"But I should have watched the whole thing, I guess. Bottom line is, I was wrong," the 52-year-old continued. "Apologizing to the Trump administration for spreading untruth is like apologizing to Barry Bonds for using steroids. It's hard."
Kimmel then switched, of course, to blaming Trump supporters for their reaction to his outright lie.
“But the outrage from the MAGA hats, the outpouring of venom, was disgusting,” he said. “Stupid too, but mostly disgusting.”
It's also stupid and disgusting to air totally false accusations about a vice president simply because you don't like his politics. But then again, it's not like this is the first time.