Jimmy Kimmel Melts Donald Trump’s Delicate Snowflake Persona for Over 10 Minutes

With the White House Correspondents dinner ditching a comedian this year, Jimmy Kimmel basically said, fine, I’ll do it myself. On his Thursday, April 23 monologue, the 58-year-old host ran his own pre-dinner roast of President Donald Trump — and he did not hold back.

So, why no comic at the dinner?

According to Kimmel, the WHCA is breaking with tradition and skipping a stand-up host. Instead, the entertainment is coming from mentalist and author Oz Pearlman. Kimmel’s take was that the 79-year-old president has zero tolerance for jokes about himself, so the dinner is playing it safe.

"Don’t worry, if we bruise your ego, it’ll only make your hands look less disgusting."

Kimmel said he was borrowing the idea from Kid Rock’s recent "alternative" Super Bowl halftime show: if the main event won’t do the bit, stage your own side show. So he did the jokes a dinner comic might have told — if the president could handle it.

The roast, condensed

• He opened by calling out the no-comedian choice and painted Trump as hypersensitive to mockery.
• He aimed directly at Trump’s 2024 hush-money trial, joking that the president didn’t want him telling jokes but also didn’t want to cough up $130,000 to keep him quiet — capping it with a crude "Mushroom" insult.
• On policy, he jabbed Trump’s second-term energy moves: new incentives for oil and gas and a slowdown on solar and wind. Kimmel’s punchline: that legacy amounts to "breaking wind and passing gas."
• He threw in a bit about Trump’s personal life, riffing that he had to introduce Donald and Melania to each other — then tagged it as his "Jeffrey Epstein impression."

The Epstein chatter and Melania’s response

That last joke touched a nerve that’s been buzzing again. Earlier this month, Melania Trump, 55, held a press conference to swat down rumors tying her to Epstein, who died by suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. She said the speculation needed to end, called the people spreading it unethical and mean-spirited, and stressed that she was never friends with Epstein. Her explanation: she and Donald crossed paths with him at the same parties because their social circles overlapped. She also said, explicitly, that she had no relationship with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell.

Kimmel already weighed in on that, too

Back on his April 9 show, Kimmel claimed Trump didn’t know Melania was going to make that statement ahead of time, joking that she skipped the spousal sign-off and just walked to the podium without a heads-up. His point: not exactly a picture of coordination at home.

Bottom line

No comic at the WHCA dinner this year? Kimmel filled the void on TV, roasting Trump from the safety of his own stage — touching everything from energy policy to that $130,000 headline, with a few sharp personal digs along the way. Whether you think the dinner made the right call with a mentalist, the late-night monologue clearly did not leave any jokes on the table.