Donald Trump Takes Aim at Jimmy Kimmel Again, Calls Him ‘Horrible’ While Awarding Kennedy Center Honorees

Donald Trump took another swipe at Jimmy Kimmel while presenting the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees with their medals.

The president, 79, labeled the late-night host, 58, “horrible” during a ceremony in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Dec. 6, ahead of the Kennedy Center Honors, which he is set to host on Sunday, Dec. 7.

“We have never had a president hosting the awards before. This is the first,” Trump told reporters, according to Deadline.

“I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right? You know, they’ll say he was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation. No, we’ll do fine,” he went on.

Trump then contrasted himself with past hosts of the annual event, saying he had “watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible, and some of these people.”

“If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president,” he added.

The 2025 Kennedy Center Honors will recognize Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, KISS, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford.

The honorees were selected by Trump, who said in August that he was “about 98 percent involved” in choosing the group after appointing himself chairman of the Kennedy Center in February.

Held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the gala pays tribute to artists whose work has made a significant impact on American culture.

Kimmel previously appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, during Barack Obama’s presidency, when he took the stage to praise fellow late-night legend David Letterman.

Trump’s latest jab at Kimmel is part of a long-running back-and-forth between the two, which intensified when Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended for six days in September after the host’s remarks following Charlie Kirk’s death.

During a trip to the United Kingdom, Trump weighed in on the hiatus, claiming the comedian had been “fired for lack of talent.”

Last month, Trump escalated the rhetoric on Truth Social, calling Kimmel a “man with NO TALENT and VERY POOR TELEVISION RATINGS” in one post.

He also asserted that Kimmel’s show offers “totally biased coverage,” writing, “Get the bum off the air!!!”

Kimmel later responded to the outburst, saying that his wife told him about Trump’s late-night post when he woke up.

“I’m the bum. I’m the bum. And he posted this, I think this is interesting, at 12:49 a.m., 11 minutes after the show ended on the East Coast, which is nice,” Kimmel joked.