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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘He thinks the Gaza Strip is a gentlemen’s club’

Jimmy Kimmel: “Trump thinks the Gaza Strip is a gentlemen’s club.”
Jimmy Kimmel: ‘How much do you think [Trump] even knows about Israel? He probably thinks the capital of Israel is baba ghanoush. ‘ Photograph: YouTube

With other late-night hosts on holiday, Jimmy Kimmel talked college basketball, Trump’s appeal to Jewish voters and Princess of Wales conspiracy theories.

The last third of March means it’s time for college basketball. Or, as Jimmy Kimmel put it on Tuesday evening, “this is that magical time of the year when the co-worker who knows the least about sports wins $900 in your March Madness pool” with the beginning of the NCAA tournament.

As with years prior, Kimmel once again questioned the existence of Gonzaga University, which qualified for its 25th consecutive March Madness tournament this year. “This is my Kate Middleton, OK?” he joked. (The school is indeed real, and located in Spokane, Washington.)

In other sports news, officials running the 2024 Olympics in Paris have lifted the intimacy ban for the athletes’ village that was put in place in 2021, during the pandemic. The Paris Games will distribute over 300,000 condoms to its 14,250 athletes. Kimmel did the math: 21 condoms per competitor. “If you’re having that much sex during the Olympics, you’re probably going to miss the Olympics,” he joked.

“That’s a very Paris thing to do,” he added. “Every once in awhile, the French need to remind the world that being horny is their thing. The only bad thing about sex during the Olympics is when you finish and your partner holds up a score.”

The host then switched to politics, as five states held primaries on Tuesday – Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and Arizona. Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the nominees, “there’s no question about that,” said Kimmel. “The only question, really, is how much of this we can take.”

Especially as Trump continues to escalate his threatening rhetoric. Speaking on “swamp creature” Sebastian Gorka’s show, Trump claimed that any Jewish person voting for Democrats “hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves”.

“That’s also the opening line of the speech he’ll be giving at his granddaughter’s bat mitzvah,” Kimmel quipped. “Do you think he even knows what ashamed is? I mean, he’s never experienced it.

“How much do you think he even knows about Israel?” Kimmel continued. “He probably thinks the capital of Israel is baba ghanoush. Trump thinks the Gaza Strip is a gentlemen’s club.”

Kimmel concluded with a bit about the conspiracy theories over Kate Middleton’s whereabouts in the UK, as she hasn’t been seen since Christmas owing to abdominal surgery. “This shows you how different it is in the UK – Kate goes missing for a few weeks, the whole country goes berserk,” he said. “Meanwhile, we haven’t seen Melania since 2021.”

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