While other hosts are off for the week, Jimmy Kimmel discussed being sued by George Santos and Trump’s expensive new sneaker line.
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel started the week with some interesting legal news: he faces a fraud lawsuit from the disgraced former congressman and frequent late-night target George Santos. The suit involves messages Kimmel’s show sent to Santos through Cameo, an app used to purchase personalized videos from celebrities.
“We wrote some absolutely ridiculous messages for him to read, we gave him a credit card number, and sure enough he recorded the messages and sent them back to us, and now he’s suing,” Kimmel explained. “He says we deceived him under the guise of fandom, soliciting personalized videos only to then broadcast these on national television. And if there’s one thing George Santos will not stand for, it’s using a fake name under false pretenses.”
The messages, Kimmel contended, were patently ridiculous; one was about a guy who ate 6lb of ground beef in under 30 minutes, another congratulated Kimmel’s mom on the successful cloning of her schnauzer. “He says he thought these were real messages and that he was duped,” Kimmel noted. “He’s being represented by the prestigious law firm of Pot, Kettle and Black.”
Kimmel appeared unfazed, even amused, by the suit. “This is so good,” he said. “This is like getting sued for paternity by Nick Cannon.”
He then turned to the latest update on Donald Trump’s legal woes, namely a penalty of $355m in his civil fraud trial in New York, which adds up to $450m or so when accounting for interest.
“Basically, what he got dinged for is claiming his assets were worth a lot more than they’re worth when he needed to get the loan, and claiming the same assets were worth less when it came to paying taxes,” Kimmel explained. Trump now claims his assets are worth “more than the more he originally lied about them being worth”.
On Truth Social, the former president wrote “I have substantially UNDERSTATED my assets in the Financial Statements, not overstated them.”
“Well, that’s good news — then you won’t have any trouble paying that $450m fine,” said Kimmel.
Trump, meanwhile, was “working very hard to squeeze cash out of his dumbs” by appearing at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia over the weekend. The former president was trying to sell new Trump-branded high tops for $399 a pair. “We’ve never seen a former president of the United States hawking shoes,” Kimmel mused. As for the patent gold sneakers themselves – “looks like something you’d wear on a Flag Day mall walk with Mr T”, Kimmel joked.
The shoes are “super limited” in supply — “just like our former president”, Kimmel laughed. “Let me tell you something: if I wanted to buy a pair of shoes from a mentally unstable racist, I’d buy a pair of Yeezys,” he added. “At least they look kinda cool.”
