Few are as thin-skinned as Donald Trump, and his history of being mad at comics who belittle him is well-documented. Or so people thought. As per Rolling Stone, this one’s new: In the early days of his presidency, Trump was so steamed that Jimmy Kimmel kept mocking him on his late night show that he pressured the White House to go after him.
As per the report, Trump directed his staff to call up Disney’s top execs to “complain and demand action.” There were at least two separate calls, which occurred towards the end of his first year in office, where they saw if they could get Kimmel to tone down his rhetoric.
What made Kimmel worse than, say, Stephen Colbert? It’s unclear. (And maybe he demanded staffers ring up Paramount Global, which owns CBS.) But as per Rolling Stone, “Trump felt that Kimmel had, in the characterization of one former senior administration official, been ‘very dishonest and doing things that [Trump] would have once sued over.'”
And so staffers, who allegedly didn’t think calling up Disney to complain about jokes would do anything, were forced to repeatedly do so anyway. “It was doing something, mostly, to say to [Trump], ‘Hey, we did this,’” one staffer told Rolling Stone.
Clearly it didn’t work. As per the report, Disney execs were more confused than worried. Spoiler: Kimmel did not tone it down and remains on the air, whereas Trump eventually lost re-election.
Kimmel did have to fight to keep his Trump jokes on air. Last year it was revealed the late night host threatened to quit if he couldn’t keep doing what he still does to this day, such as when he dragged him for not liking Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show.
(Via Rolling Stone)