Obama trolls Trump over ‘tweets’ on Kimmel show
‘Tonight Show’ shuffles top duties
LOS ANGELES, Oct 25, (Agencies): US President Barack Obama on Monday trolled Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — known for his prolific use of Twitter to settle scores — making Trump the punch line for jokes on ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
Obama read aloud a series of “mean tweets” culminating in one from Trump: “President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!”
“At least I will go down as a president”, Obama said.
Kimmel joked that Obama had to “take time away from helping rig the election” to appear on the show, a dig at Trump, who has repeatedly said the Nov 8 vote is rigged against him.
Obama picked up on the joke while describing how comedian Bill Murray beat him in a contest to putt golf balls into a glass in the Oval Office during a recent visit — a stunt the White House designed to promote Obamacare health insurance.
“He won repeatedly”, Obama said. “The glass was rigged!”
Kimmel asked Obama, “Do you ever laugh” when watching Trump on television. “Most of the time”, Obama said.
Obama also revealed he has been called on a special phone by his bed “three or four times” in the middle of the night during his time in office to deal with emergencies, including when the 2011 tsunami hit Japan.
But he said he does not reach for his smartphone in the wee hours — another dig at the Republican candidate.
“I don’t tweet at 3:00 am about people who insult me”, Obama said.
Obama’s second and final term ends on Jan 20. Under the US constitution, presidents are limited to two terms — which is just as well, Obama said.
“If I were able to run for a third term, Michelle would divorce me”, he said, noting his wife does not like politics.
Not all the jokes were at Trump’s expense. Comedian Will Farrell channeled deceased but beloved Chicago Cubs sportscaster Harry Caray to recommend that Obama “open a shrimp shack” after he leaves office.
And Joel McHale feigned outrage when told he had been bumped from the show for Obama.
“You got the president, huh. Wow, that’s a big deal — he’s got two months left in the job”, McHale said, oozing sarcasm.
“That’s a real good get there, Jimmy: Lame! Duck!” McHale said.
The president joked that he would be like “the old guy at the bar where you went to high school — just kind of hanging around like shirt is buttoned a bit too low — still thinks he’s cool”.
Obama, who appeared on the show last year, also read off a new sampling of mean tweets, a regular segment on Kimmel’s show in which guests read the less positive social media comments about themselves.
On Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight”, host John Oliver proposed a wager to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: if he loses next month’s election, Oliver will give Trump his Emmy trophy.
“It increasingly seems like if Donald Trump loses, we are not going to get the concession speech that the country badly needs, because he is medically incapable of accepting that he is a loser”, said Oliver. “So we need to find a way for him to give a concession speech while he’s still able to claim that he won something”.
The offer came in response to Trump’s 2012 claims that the Emmys were rigged, saying that he never took home a trophy for “The Apprentice” because of biases against him. He reiterated his grudge against the Television Academy at last week’s final presidential debate, adding “should’ve gotten it” when his opponent Hillary Clinton brought it up. Trump has made similar claims about the presidential election being rigged against him.
It’s a new morning, of sorts, behind the scenes of NBC’s vaunted “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”.
Josh Lieb, who has been the late-night show’s lead producer since its launch in February of 2014, will leave the program to take up writing and producing duties as part of a broader overall deal with Universal Television. His departure from the program follows a recent announcement that producer Gavin Purcell, who was instrumental in some of “Tonight’s” digital outreach, would move to digital-media outlet Vox overseeing video initiatives.
At “Tonight”, three producers will get expanded roles. Katie Hockmeyer will assume oversight of production and Gerard Bradford and Mike Di Cenzo will assume oversight of the show’s creative direction.