Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘A code orange de-mental emergency going on here right now’
Late-night hosts unpacked the Trump administration’s continued attempts to distract from and underplay the Epstein files.It took barely a glance at Donald Trump’s social media posts on Tuesday for Jimmy Kimmel to know: “We’ve got a code orange de-mental emergency going on here right now.I mean, he’s gone.He’s totally gone.”The host focused in particular on the US president’s meltdown over the $4.
6bn Gordie Howe international bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, which Trump falsely claimed had been built with “virtually no US content”.Trump threatened to block the opening of the bridge, named after the Canadian-born Detroit Red Wings hockey legend, scheduled to happen later this spring.“Come on, Canada, you know how this works,” said Kimmel.“Pull out the Sharpie, cross out the Gordie Howe, write in the Donald Trump and everybody can relax, alright?”“And of course, all of this, every bit of this, is an effort to distract us” from Trump’s name appearing in the Epstein files more than 1m times, according to representative Jamie Raskin, who has reviewed the unredacted files.“There’s only 3m pages in the whole thing,” Kimmel noted.
“That’s more than Harry Potter gets mentioned in all seven Harry Potter books.”Also in the Epstein files is Trump’s commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, who claimed that he and his wife cut ties with Epstein in 2005, after the financier made an “inappropriate” remark and the couple decided to “never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again”.However, unsealed emails indicate that Lutnick visited Epstein’s island in 2012, seven years after he allegedly cut ties with him.Asked at a congressional hearing, Lutnick admitted that he “did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation” with his wife and four children.“What a fun dad!” Kimmel quipped.
“Where do you want to go, kids? Want to have lunch with the most notorious pedophile in American history?“The fact that you brought your family to Epstein island is not the point,” Kimmel added,“It’s super crazy, but it’s not the point,The point is you lied about never being in the room with ‘that disgusting person’ ever again,Not only were you in the room with that disgusting person, you sailed to his island for lunch,”Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, then asked about references in the files to the fact that Epstein had expressed interest in one of Lutnick’s nannies.
Lutnick claimed he had “no idea about that … whole thing,I don’t recall it having anything to do with me, and I don’t know,”As Kimmel noted, just one Republican, senator Thomas Massie from Kentucky, has called for Lutnick’s resignation,Meanwhile, Republicans such as representative Lisa McClain, from Michigan, fume publicly about immigration, blaming Democrats for fostering crime fear-mongering with lines such as “let’s villainize the ICE agents and let’s celebrate the people who are raping your children!”Kimmel had not patience for it: “Can you imagine how ignorant these people are, screaming about pedophiles and rapists while members of their own party seem to be doing everything they can to protect the pedophiles and the rapists in the Epstein files?”And on the Daily Show, Jordan Klepper also mocked Lutnick’s about-face on Epstein, after saying multiple times on a podcast that he was “gross”,“There’s no way that seven years after saying he would never see Epstein again that he visited him on his private island!” Klepper said facetiously, before replaying Lutnick’s testimony that he only visited Epstein Island for lunch.
“Was eating with a sex criminal your only option for lunch, Howard?” Klepper mocked.“You couldn’t have tried making a PB&J just once?“And the fact that you went there on a boat makes it so much worse,” he added.“I mean, if you ran into him at a Potbelly’s and he said ‘sit down,’ I would understand.But you actively navigated a ship toward the man.You’re out there shouting: ‘Captain, raise the sails and set a course for Pedophile Island!’“Howard, look man, I don’t think I could be more disappointed.
” Except Lutnick then went on to say, as a defense, that he also brought his wife and four children and nannies along with him,Said a stunned Klepper: “‘I went to Epstein Island but don’t worry, I brought my kids’ isn’t the excuse you think it is,Good God, man,”According to Lutnick, the family “had lunch on the island, that is true,For an hour, then we left, with all of my children.
”“Father of the year over here!” Klepper joked,“Just to be clear: Howard Lutnick went from ‘I never saw that gross man again’ to ‘OK, I did visit his island’ to ‘Hey, back off, I left with all my kids, OK? I counted them,I’m the good guy here!’“Maybe I shouldn’t be too harsh on Howard,” he added,“Let he who has never sworn he cut ties with a convicted sex offender only to later dock his private yacht onto a private sex island for a quick lunch before continuing his family vacation with not one but multiple nannies cast the first one and done,”
Heraskevych’s ‘helmet of memory’ forces IOC into PR fiasco at Winter Olympics | Sean Ingle
Skeleton racer sacrificed his dream of winning a medal and succeeded in putting the horrors of the war in Ukraine back on the agendaTo be an Olympic-class skeleton racer requires extraordinary guts and impeccable nerve, as the corners loom and then whoosh past at frightening speed. So did anybody really believe that Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych would lose his when the world’s eyes were upon him?Not the International Olympic Committee, who flipped between threats of expulsion and sweet talk over the past fortnight, without coming close to changing his mind. And certainly not those of us who have spoken and messaged Heraskevych, and found a man utterly prepared to sacrifice his dream of winning a Winter Olympic medal for a higher purpose.In public and private his message was the same: he would not back down. And if the IOC barred from competing in his “helmet of memory”, which commemorates some of the 600 Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed by Russian bombs and bullets since 2022, he would accept his fate
‘It’s emptiness’: banned Ukrainian athlete accuses IOC of fuelling Russia’s propaganda
Vladyslav Heraskevych has accused the International Olympic Committee of doing Russia’s propaganda for them after he was barred from racing in the Winter Games because he wanted to wear a “helmet of memory” in honour of Ukraine’s war dead.In one of the most controversial decisions in recent Olympic history, the Ukrainian skeleton racer was informed only minutes before he was due to compete that his accreditation had been rescinded.It followed a last-ditch meeting in Cortina on Thursday morning with the IOC’s president, Kirsty Coventry, who left in tears after she failed to persuade Heraskevych to change his mind.The IOC has maintained all week that the helmet, which shows the images of 24 athletes and children that died from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, violates its athletes’ charter because the field of play must be free from political expression.However Heraskevych, who had a genuine chance of winning Ukraine’s first medal at these Winter Olympics, has insisted that the helmet is an act of remembrance for the friends he has lost and that it would be a “betrayal” to back down
Move over Pommel Horse Guy: USA’s Curling Rambo becomes cult hero of Winter Olympics
At Paris 2024, the US had Pommel Horse Guy. At these Winter Olympics, the Americans have a new cult hero: Curling Rambo.Aidan Oldenburg, a member of the US men’s curling team, has attracted attention for his glasses, thick thatch of hair and red bandana. His appeal as an unlikely hero has drawn comparisons with Stephen Nedoroscik, USA’s bespectacled, Rubik’s Cube-solving gymnastics hero who won two bronze medals at the Paris Olympics.Like Nedoroscik, the 24-year-old Oldenburg has hobbies away from his sport
‘If they’re a chef short, I’ll fill that role’: Safyaan Sharif ready to cook up T20 World Cup shock
It is fair to say that England’s first two games at the T20 World Cup have not inspired much confidence – unless you’re one of their future opponents. For Scotland, last-minute call-ups after the decision to banish Bangladesh from the tournament last month, English travails have put some extra pep in their step ahead of the now-crucial Group C clash in Kolkata on Saturday.“Definitely,” says the seamer Safyaan Sharif. “They’ll be feeling pressure because they know they have to win if they want to qualify. Obviously that’s the same with us, but I don’t think we have too much to lose
Olympic champion Breezy Johnson crashes out of super-G then gets engaged at end of course
Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson didn’t add to her medal haul during the women’s super-G on Thursday, but she left Tofane with something precious anyway: an engagement ring.Johnson, who won gold on Sunday in the downhill, crashed out of the super-G after she clipped a gate with one of her poles, sending her tumbling into the safety fence. However, there was some consolation: her boyfriend, Connor Watkins, proposed to her near the finish line. Surrounded by members of the US Ski Team, Johnson said “Yes!” and the two embraced.Johnson said she had an idea Watkins would propose, although the exact location and timing was still a surprise
Victoria and WA shook the foundations as Origin hit a peak that it will never reach again | Brendan Foster
When a late snap from Gary Buckenara put Western Australia ahead of Victoria in the 1986 State of Origin game, I feared the stands at Subiaco Oval were about to collapse under the weight of the thunderous thumping of rapturous fans.Almost 40,000 supporters squeezed into the ageing Soviet-style concrete stadium on a Tuesday afternoon in July to watch the Sandgropers take on the Big V in what is widely regarded as one of the greatest interstate football matches.Maybe it was because the ground was bulging at the seams with thousands of jittery, sugar-fuelled school kids and slightly sloshed Sandgropers, whose bosses had turned a blind eye to their midweek sickies – but I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like it.There was a chaotic, Colosseum-like frenzy to the noise, without the gladiators or the lions. (If you think I’m dishing up a decent serving of hyperbolic hogwash, watch the last quarter to see why the game remains timeless
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