Why Is Trump Confusing Jimmy Kimmel With Al Pacino All of a Sudden?

Randy Holmes/Getty
Randy Holmes/Getty

Following yet another thorough roasting Tuesday night by late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump launched a typically unhinged attack first thing Wednesday via his floundering Twitter clone, Truth Social.

This time, the former president turned criminal defendant decided to rail at Kimmel over his hosting gig at this year’s Academy Awards, which took place more than a month ago. Trump—who has regularly portrayed President Joe Biden as senile and in mental decline—also seemingly confused the comedian with Oscar winner Al Pacino.

“Stupid Jimmy Kimmel, who still hasn’t recovered from his horrendous performance and big ratings drop as Host of The Academy Awards, especially when he showed he suffered from TDS, commonly known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, to the entire World by reading on air my TRUTH about how bad a job he was doing that night, right before he stumbled through announcing the biggest award of all, ‘Picture of the Year,’” Trump raged on his social media platform.

“It was a CLASSIC CHOKE, one of the biggest ever in show business, and to top it off, he forgot to say the famous and mandatory line, ‘AND THE WINNER IS.’ Instead he stammered around as he opened the envelope,” Trump continued. “Supposedly his wife, and even management, begged him not to do it, “DON’T READ HIS TRUTH, JIMMY, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS,” they said. He was made to look like a FOOL, which he is, and at the same time go down in Television History as the WORST HOST EVER OF THE ONCE VAUNTED ACADEMY AWARDS!”

Of course, it was Pacino who bizarrely announced Oppenheimer as Best Picture at this year’s ceremony, forgoing the traditional reading of the list of nominees and abruptly blurting out the winner. For his part, the Godfather star claimed that the ceremony’s producers had actually pushed for him not to go through the nominated films before announcing the victor.

Kimmel swung back at Trump on Wednesday afternoon in comedic fashion. “In fairness to our former President, many stable geniuses confuse me with Al Pacino,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host tweeted alongside a screenshot of Trump’s “Truth.”

Despite Trump’s assertions, Kimmel received overwhelmingly positive reviews for his hosting of the Oscars, which drew more TV viewers than any awards show in the past four years. Kimmel’s eponymous late-night show is also the most watched in its demographic.

Trump likely didn’t revisit Kimmel’s month-old performance because of his festering anger over the late-night host bringing his long-standing beef with the ex-president to the Oscars stage, however. (Kimmel admitted later he was told not to broach the subject.)

While delivering a series of one-liners and zingers on Tuesday night’s show about the latest headlines from the ex-president’s hush-money criminal trial, Kimmel also tweaked Trump over the tanking share prices of his media company.

“If you bought Trump stock two weeks ago—and shame on you if you did—you lost half your money,” Kimmel quipped. “But if you hold on just a little bit longer, you might be able to lose all of it.”

It could also be what Kimmel said about the presumptive GOP presidential nominee during his conversation with musical artist Jack Antonoff.

“Each night, I am going to try to work some comment about Trump wearing diapers into the conversation and eventually it become part of the fabric of this country,” Kimmel declared. “And he will not be happy with it when it happens. And in fact, we might even get to the point where he drops his pants to prove he isn’t wearing diapers.”

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