Jimmy Fallon Shows Kimmel Solidarity With Fake Censorship of Jokes About Trump

Jimmy Fallon showed solidarity with Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday with a gag mocking the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech.

Fallon said, “a lot of people are worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say, or that we’ll be censored, but I’m going to cover the President’s trip to the UK, just like I normally would.” Then he introduced a: Whenever the joke mocked Donald Trump, his announcer interrupted to censor the punchline.

But before getting there, Fallon started off by paying tribute to Kimmel.

“Well guys, the big story is that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking, ‘WTF.’ But to be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on — no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he is a decent, funny, and loving guy. And I hope he comes back,” he said.

Then came the fake censorship. Fallon noted, for instance, the way Trump was trolled during his trip to the UK this week by images of the president with Jeffrey Epstein. But when he said “Jeff,” his announcer interrupted him to add “Goldblum.”

Fallon then got a little more pointed in mocking Trump. For instance, he pretended to be a fawning supporter, saying, “President Trump just wrapped up his three day trip to the UK, and he looked incredibly handsome. His tie was exactly the right length and his face looked like a color that exists in nature.”

“To sum it up, President Trump is making America great again by restoring our national reputation, reinvigorating our economy and rebuilding our military. I hereby nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize,” he also said.

Another joke involved how Trump praised the close bond between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Fallon imaged Trump saying, “the only closer bond I share is with Prince Andrew,” a reference to Andrew’s own ties to Epstein.

Watch the whole monologue below:

For those catching up, Kimmel was suspended on Wednesday by ABC in response to conservative outrage over comments he’d made in his monologue two days before about Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old who murdered right wing influencer Charlie Kirk. Kimmel said, “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 and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

His assumption that Robinson was politically right wing was based on all available evidence made public by authorities as of Monday, when he made that comment. On Tuesday, more details came out that indicated the opposite may be true, and that Robinson may have also had personal motivations. Though there are still a lot of questions yet to be answered.

That context was ignored by conservative critics. So it is on Wednesday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr stoked outrage by threatening ABC and parent company Disney during a podcast appearance. Local TV powerhouses Nexstar and Sinclair then both pulled Kimmel from their ABC affiliates. ABC and Disney suspended the show “indefinitely” shortly after.