Kimmel Questions How Trump’s View of Golfing During an Outbreak Has Changed Since 2014 (Video)
On Tuesday’s episode of his ABC show, Jimmy Kimmel vented his spleen for a few minutes about what he described as “brazen hypocrisy” by Donald Trump and Fox News regarding presidents who play golf during a disease outbreak. And as his example, he compared Fox and Donald Trump in 2020 with Fox and Donald Trump… in 2014.
Some background for those of you who don’t remember: In 2013 and 2014, there was a major outbreak of Ebola in Africa. Now, while Ebola is extremely serious and horrific, the outbreak never posed a serious threat to Americans. Only four people in the U.S. were infected, only one person, a Liberian man who had been turned away by a Dallas hospital once before being treated, died, and two of the other three were nurses treating that man. While it was a very serious regional outbreak, it never even approached pandemic levels.
Even so, Republicans and conservative media turned Ebola into major mid-term campaign issue in 2014. Including Donald Trump, who notably criticized state governors for not imposing mandatory quarantines. Which brings us to Kimmel’s monologue on Tuesday, which concerned the current disease outbreak and presidential golf.
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“This weekend, Donald Trump by unauthorized presidential order made a sweeping declaration to open all churches, temples and places of worship in an effort to make sure that the most devout Americans get a chance to contract the coronavirus too,” Kimmel said.
“And so on Sunday morning, he went to church for the first time,” Kimmel joked. “Wait — that’s not church… he went to… golf? He went to play golf. During the pandemic. Because that’s what Jesus would do, I guess.”
Kimmel noted that Trump’s excuse is that he was trying to get some exercise, “even though he rode in a cart that he drove, adding that the point Trump “seems to be missing is that it looks bad for the president to be golfing with 100,000 Americans dead and a stay-at-home order in place.”
That’s when Kimmel fired up some clips from Fox News to show off that “brazen hypocrisy.”
The first clip, from a 2014 episode of “Fox and Friends,” featured Trump calling into the show. It begins as co-host Steve Doocy complains that Obama had gone “to the 200th round of golf in his presidency.” To that, Trump acknowledged that he loves golf, but said “you know when you’re president, you sort of say like, I’m gonna sort of give it up for a couple of years, and I’m gonna really focus on the job.”
Kimmel then played another “Fox and Friends” clip, this time from Memorial Day, in which the show’s talking heads defending Trump for “leading the way” on reopening the country — while arguing that the lockdowns and quarantines probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place. This time, Steve Doocy looked on in apparent agreement.
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Said Kimmel: “Oh, so he’s a hero! He’s not golfing — he’s leading the way!”
“Do they know that it’s not safe to have your nose so far up the President’s ass right now?” Kimmel continued. “There’s a virus going around! These people, they have no shame. And no YouTube either, I guess.”
Watch the whole clip above.
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