Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has become an important surrogate for Senate Democrats, but Tuesday night he tried to upend the president’s State of the Union, not by fact checking the speech, but by interviewing an adult film star named Stormy Daniels who has been accused of having an affair with the president before he began his campaign.
It wasn’t a good look for Kimmel, the self-proclaimed progressive; his interview was derided as sexist, salacious, and “fratty” by both sides of the aisle.
Stormy Daniels obviously isn’t an expert on the issues, but Kimmel and the adult film actress hardly discussed the president’s agenda, anyway. In one particularly intellectual clip, Kimmel tries to ply Daniels for information about the president’s nether regions, showing her a lineup of carrots and asking her to select one for demonstration.
“I’m not asking you to say anything about anything but I’ve got three carrots here,” he said. “Without any commentary, would you like to pick a carrot?”
She said she wasn’t interested, making her officially the more professional party. And commentators from both sides of the aisle were not amused.
At Urban Daddy, a more typically left-leaning site, Kimmel was called “fratty” and embarrassing. Commentators described the scene as the “most bizarre, stilted and surreal pieces of political theater in recent memory,” and suggested that Kimmel was returning to his sexist “Man Show” roots, where he punctuated his weekly talk show with shots of girls jumping on trampolines in short skirts.
This is like ‘Man Show’-era Jimmy Kimmel and it’s not good
— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) January 31, 2018
Worse still, his interview with Stormy Daniels wasn’t even the most insulting part of the night for women. In his monologue, he referenced conservative commentator S. E. Cupp, telling her to “put that in your SE Cupp and smoke it,” because she dared to suggest that Kimmel wouldn’t have had Bill Clinton’s sexual assault accusers on as a follow up to his State of the Union.
Cupp responded to Kimmel in kind.
Coming from someone who used to ask women to “put your mouth on it” to guess what was in your pants, @jimmykimmel, your “Put that in your SE Cupp and smoke it” line is a real tour de force. Congrats on the hard-hitting Stormy Daniels interview. You’re a real champion of women.
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) January 31, 2018
