Turning Point USA wasn’t buying what Jimmy Kimmel was selling.
The late-night comic returned to ABC’s airwaves on Tuesday after a week’s suspension with a dishonest attempt to explain the comments that got him benched from the show after conservative organizer Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
He didn’t come close.
Turning Point’s Andrew Kolvat, spokesman for the powerhouse group Kirk founded, nailed it in a post on the social media platform X.
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.” https://t.co/YIR7JeFLIh
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) September 24, 2025
“Not good enough,” Kolvat wrote. “Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Direct, to the point, and most of all honest.
Kimmel’s mealymouthed explanation was none of those.
Instead, Kimmel said, “[I]t was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.”
“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions,” he said. “It was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that, to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.”
It wasn’t his intention to blame any specific group for the actions?
Then why did he blame a specific group — specifically supporters of the Make America Great agenda?
This is what Kimmel said in his Sept. 15 monologue on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” less than a week after Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them. [They’re] doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The “MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
That’s blaming a specific group, no matter how Kimmel wants to pretend otherwise now. (The fact that the accused gunman is pretty much the opposite of the conservative MAGA movement — a leftist reportedly involved in a romantic relationship with another man who is “transitioning” to be a woman — just makes it worse.)
Kimmel owed those Americans an apology that wasn’t there. And plenty of people noticed:
Exactly. An apology isn’t complicated: admit the lie, name the truth, and honor Charlie’s family. Anything less is spin, not accountability.
— nelson ajwang (@nelsonajwang2) September 24, 2025
What was the “intention” then? It’s pretty hard to consider it as anything BUT that.
— King Knossos The Bull (@KingKnossos74) September 24, 2025
He played the victim, and lied about what he originally said.
— brianbdotcom (@brianbdotcom) September 24, 2025
Kimmel’s empty words might have been good enough for the suits at ABC.
There were obviously good enough for the writers of the show — and the Trump-hating host himself.
But they weren’t good enough for the group Kirk founded, and they shouldn’t be good enough for anyone who cares about the increasingly dangerous atmosphere that surrounds American politics.
No one is asking or expects Kimmel to suddenly like and respect Trump and his supporters, but a modicum of honesty about his own words isn’t too much to ask.
And an apology would have been nice, too.
Kimmel offered neither on Tuesday, and it wasn’t good enough at all.
It wasn’t even close.
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