Comedian Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t appear to be shying away from making jokes about Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, even after the Georgia Republican filed a threat of violence report against the late-night host for an earlier crack he’d made against her.
“Officer? I would like to report a joke,” Kimmel tweeted on Wednesday night in response to the Republican congresswoman’s original message where she wrote: “ABC, this threat of violence against me by Jimmy Kimmel has been filed with the Capitol Police”.
The twitter fight between the comedian and the congresswoman stemmed from a Tuesday night monologue Kimmel delivered where he tied last week’s pop culture du jour, Will Smith’s Oscar slap, to one of the Georgia lawmakers more recent controversies where she slapped her Republican colleagues with the label of being “pro-pedophile” for voting to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The comments, directed at Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney who have indicated they will vote to confirm Judge Jackson, have been derided across the political spectrum in recent days.
Sen Collins, when asked by an Insider reporter what she thought of the comments, replied by first laughing them off and then noting that, “this is what we’ve come to expect from her” and that her comments were “obviously ludicrous and typical”.
For his part on Tuesday night, Kimmel took a more confrontational approach in reprimanding Ms Greene’s unsupported “pro-pedophile” accusations of her colleagues.
“Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?” Kimmel asked, referencing the now infamous slap of Chris Rock during this year’s Oscars ceremony.
Kimmel, Ms Greene and the Capitol police have all been reached for comment by The Independent.
Earlier in the week when Ms Greene was reached for comment on her filing a police report against the ABC late-night host, her spokesperson told The Independent: “Our office takes all threats of violence towards the Congresswoman very seriously,” adding: “Jimmy Kimmel called for violence to be committed against Congresswoman Greene. It will not be tolerated.”
Ms Greene’s objection to Republicans voting in favour of confirming Judge Jackson, who would become the first Black woman to hold the seat, aligns with what several of her right-leaning colleagues exemplified while questioning the appellate judge.
During the hearing, Judge Jackson was grilled by Republicans with questions that, as she noted in many of her responses, fell outside her area of expertise, including one from Sen Marsha Blackburn where she was prompted to define “woman”.
Ms Greene’s specific criticism of the judge was a common one drudged up by GOP lawmakers, in which they insinuated that Judge Jackson had a record of going easy on sex criminals because she had, at times, departed from broad sentencing guidelines during sex crimes cases, decisions she defended as warranted given the individual circumstances.
Kimmel pointed out that there was an irony in the Georgia Republican staking her reputation on this “pro-pedophile” tweet, when she’s also been known to be quite chummy with US Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is reportedly under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking.
The Florida Republican has not been charged with any crimes, and continues to vehemently deny the allegations.
“This woman is good pals with Matt Gaetz who is currently under investigation for trafficking minors for sex! It’s scum and scummer”, Kimmel said.
