Jimmy Kimmel on Trump’s second term: ‘Has anyone ever done a worse job?’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump’s midterm bribes, Pete Hegseth’s ‘grooming standards’ and Don Jr’s wedding bankrolled by a Russian oligarch

Late-night hosts dug into Donald Trump’s attempts to sway the upcoming midterms and the Russian oligarch who bankrolled his son Donald Trump Jr’s second wedding.

On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host opened with news that Republicans skipped town early this week in order to dodge a vote on whether to impeach the “secretary of war”, Pete Hegseth. “They’re very good at dodging votes. They did this a couple weeks ago to dodge a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Kimmel noted.

“We are now 48 days from our president declaring a stolen election,” he continued. “He’s trying every trick to try to steal it himself. The supreme court foiled his plan to stop mail-in voting, so now he’s offering $5,000 to every adult if the Republicans win. Only if they win. Which is crazy – also crazy that he would give us our own money as some kind of a gift.

“Also, remind me, aren’t Republicans the people who are always screaming about handouts?” he added before several clips of Trump and numerous conservative commentators decrying Democrats who, to quote Hannity, “take your hard-earned money and use it to buy power and votes for themselves”.

“Those of us who did not vote for Donald Trump assumed he would be even worse the second time around, but even I had no idea he’d be this bad,” Kimmel added. “Has anyone ever done a worse job with anything?

“Kitty and Jose Menendez did a better job of parenting their boys than Donald Trump has running this country.”

In other news is “the president’s war – not the one in Iran, the one on the Kennedy Center”. On Tuesday, Trump’s handpicked board at the arts and culture institution voted to close for renovations, moments after a judge ruled that they could not add Trump’s name to the building without congressional approval. “So now the big baby says that if the supreme court doesn’t overturn that ruling and put his name on the wall next to the Kennedy’s, there will be no renovations at all,” Kimmel explained.

“He’s holding the building hostage,” he added. “They really should call it the Melania Trump Kennedy Center.”

And on The Daily Show, Josh Johnson reacted to reports that Hegseth’s Pentagon is seeking troops to attend his next speech who embody his specific vision of masculinity – men with a Hegseth-delineated “waist-to-height ratios” and “impeccable grooming standards”.

“I’m sorry, is this guy still in charge of the military, or is he in charge of casting Love Island?” Johnson said.

“I’ve never heard anyone say the phrase ‘waist-to-height’ ratio before,” he continued. “This man cannot count the number of missiles you need to fight a war with Iran, but when it comes to male physique, he’s A Beautiful Mind?

“And asking for impeccable grooming is a little strange. But it’s nice to know that this administration is finally taking grooming seriously,” he quipped next to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein.

In other “perfect specimens of masculinity” – Donald Trump Jr, who this spring got married (again) to Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson on a private island in the Bahamas … that was bankrolled by a Russian oligarch.

Umar Kremlev, a former criminal turned boxing promoter turned associate of the Russian president, reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent the island and stage several parties with professional dancers and performances. “I don’t want to be culturally insensitive, but that name sounds like a knockoff James Bond villain,” said Johnson. “He’s a spy from the Kremlin – let’s call him Krem-lev.

“But I’m getting distracted: a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin paid for the president’s son’s wedding weekend,” he added. “And this is a presidential family of billionaires, which means you just did corruption for the love of the game.

“This whole family has been making billions off Trump’s presidency and they still can’t resist a freebie, whether it’s a Qatari jet or a post-wedding chocolate fountain.”