Sunday 6 November 2022 10:07 PM Trump crows after Jimmy Kimmel says he 'lost half of my fanbase' over jokes ... trends now
Donald Trump took great pleasure in Jimmy Kimmel's recent assertion that he lost half of his fanbase for bashing the former president on-air over the weekend - telling attendees at a rally that Kimmel's late-night show 'is dead.'
The ex-commander-in-chief made the brazen declaration at a rally in Pennsylvania - two days after Kimmel, 54, griped about waning viewership for Jimmy Kimmel Live! on a friend's web show.
The appearance saw Kimmel, an outspoken critic of the former president, reveal he threatened to quit Live! when showrunners floated the idea he be barred from attacking Trump - even though his countless jabs cost him at least half his audience.
Apparently thrilled with the revelation, Trump, 76, took a cheerful shot at the TV talker Saturday, offering some additional entertainment to eventgoers in the town of Latrobe.
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Donald Trump reveled in Jimmy Kimmel's recent assertion that he lost half of his fanbase for bashing the former president on-air over the weekend - telling attendees at a rally that Kimmel's late-night show 'is dead'
'I saw Jimmy Kimmel said that his show's practically dead because nobody that likes Trump will watch,' Trump can be heard telling the crowd in footage of the late night assembly.
'And guess what? That turned out to be a majority of the people,' Trump then blasts, with a triumphant tone in his voice. 'The show is dead, and so are the other ones.'
Trump glancing comment in reference to 'the other ones' appeared to be a shot at Kimmel's fellow late night peers such as Jimmy Fallon and James Corden - two vehement progressive often accused of being vehicles for the liberal mass media.
That conclusion regarding Trump's passing remark is bolstered by the fact that the former president followed up that assertion by calling attention to conservative talking head Greg Gutfeld's success on Fox News with his own show, Gutfeld!
The verbal jab from Trump came two days after Kimmel, 54, griped about waning viewership for Jimmy Kimmel Live! on a friend's web show during a recent interview with Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal on the Naked Lunch podcast
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'Greg Gutfeld on cable has the number one evening show,' Trump pointed out, citing the conservative's recent ratings average of 2.15M viewers - which came well over what liberal rivals Fallon, Corden, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah, have drummed up in recent months.
The show, which went nightly in April 2021, is often lambasted by the left and adored by the right - but as liberals find themselves split between The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Gutfeld! has carved out a spot for itself at the top of the heap in the battle for late-night supremacy.
'That's great, right?' Trump said to the crowd Saturday of the the longtime Fox host's newfound success - and his left-wing competitors' subsequent struggles.
Immediately after, the former president was graced with attendees' uproarious applause.
Kimmel, pictured with a then campaigning Trump on his show in 2016, said he threatened to walk away from the show if he had to turn down his Trump jokes: 'If you want somebody else to host the show, then that’s fine. I’m just not going to do it like that' the liberal TV talker said
With that said, the late-night sphere has been through a great deal of changes recently - chiefly brought on by diminished viewership that Trump alluded was due to liberal talking points commonly exhibited by hosts while on the air.
Back in July, showrunners pulled notorious neoliberal comedian Samantha Bee’s 'Full Frontal' on TBS, after Bee, a former correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, had trouble securing even 300,000 viewers to her show,
Then, in September, Stewart's replacement, woke comedian Trevor Noah, was bounced from the program after seven years amid also dwindling ratings.
Since assuming Stewart's spot at the once popular show, viewership has declined dramatically - with some saying the South African comic's heavy-handed soapbox rants triggered the slump.
When Noah, 38, took over the show in
