There is something distinctly surreal about Hollywood preparing for its biggest Sunday of the year while simultaneously fielding intelligence reports about Iranian drone strikes. Jimmy Kimmel, for one, did not pretend otherwise.
During Wednesday's monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host addressed the FBI's warning to California law enforcement about Iran's reported intent to target the West Coast with a drone strike.
According to The Wrap, the alert had been circulating ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, tightening security around the ceremony and lending the whole week an unusually grim undertone.
Kimmel's read on it was predictably bleak. 'The mood around the Oscars is a little bit tense this year,' he told his studio audience. 'You know, they beefed up security after the FBI warned law enforcement here in California that Iran is aspiring to launch a drone strike on the West Coast, which is where we all are right now.'
Then came the pivot only Kimmel could make. 'Isn't this how Iron Man 3 started the movie? We can't handle a drone strike. We barely survived the writers' strike here.'
It got a laugh, as it should. But the reference carried a bit of weight. The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike ran for 148 days, the second-longest in the guild's history, and the industry has not entirely shaken off what that stoppage exposed about its fault lines. Kimmel knows his audience. He also knows which wounds are still tender.
A Win-Win for Trump, Apparently
From there, Kimmel moved to the political dimension of the Iran threat, and did so with characteristic lack of restraint. His argument, put plainly, was that a strike in California would not exactly keep the president up at night. Trump lost the state to Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election by a considerable margin.
'He might even bomb us himself and blame it on you,' Kimmel said, directing the line at Iran. 'Just keep that in mind.'
He went further. Kimmel called Trump 'a disaster' and argued that those around the president are 'too scared to bring up' the fact that most people would rather see the standoff with Iran wound down than escalated. What made the segment land was the contrast he set up: credible threats of drone attacks on the American West Coast, and a president who spent his Wednesday at a rally in Kentucky mocking the way Barack Obama walked down a flight of stairs.
'We have credible threats of retaliatory drone attacks on California,' Kimmel said, 'and this guy today is in Kentucky reminiscing about the way Obama went down the stairs.'
He then cut to footage of the rally. It proved his point more efficiently than any scripted punchline could.
Jake Paul, Draft Notes, and a Question of Inspiration
The monologue did not stop there. Kimmel turned to Trump's recent endorsement of YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul for political office, which followed Paul publicly praising the president for 'never back[ing] down from a fight.' Kimmel's response to that framing was pointed.
'I wonder if Jake knows Trump got a note from his podiatrist to dodge the draft,' he said. 'Do you think maybe he kept that a wonderful secret from Jake? But I'm glad he's inspired.'
It was a busy eleven minutes. The week ahead of the Oscars is rarely quiet, but intelligence warnings, political rallies, and the spectre of a military confrontation add a different kind of noise to the usual awards season chatter. Kimmel, for all the jokes, was not entirely playing it for laughs.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.
