Jimmy Kimmel on Matt Gaetz: 'The shrimp tail in your Cinnamon Toast Crunch'
While most late-night hosts remain on spring break vacation, Jimmy Kimmel recapped Matt Gaetz’s uncomfortable interview with Tucker Carlson as he faces federal investigation for an alleged sexual relationship with a teenage girl.
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel tore into Florida congressman Matt Gaetz on Wednesday evening, a day after the longtime Trump ally revealed he was under investigation by the justice department for an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.
Gaetz, who represents parts of western Florida and has been a staunch backer of the former president’s baseless election fraud claims, is “basically the shrimp tail in your Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” Kimmel explained. “He’s not well-liked by anyone.”
The justice department is reportedly investigating whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking statutes by paying for the girls’s travel with him. Gaetz has not been charged with a crime, but he attempted to defend himself in the court of public opinion with a stop, naturally, on Fox News.
On Tucker Carlson’s show Tuesday evening, Gaetz claimed he was the victim of extortion by a member of the justice department. “You can really tell he’s speaking from the heart and not from a statement his lawyer wrote on the screen,” Kimmel deadpanned.
In the surprisingly awkward interview, a skeptical-looking Carlson nodded along as Gaetz sourced sympathy by vaguely reminding the Fox
News host of accusations against him from years prior.
“I do agree with you that being accused falsely is one of the worst things that can happen,” Carlson responded, to which Kimmel added in an impression: “I know this because I do it almost every night on my show.”
Gaetz also reminded Carlson of a dinner the two attended with their wives two years ago (Carlson said he didn’t remember the meeting) and claimed the justice department was targeting him as a prominent Republican with a rich father. “But this isn’t a partisan investigation,” Kimmel explained.
“In fact, it was opened by Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr,” who reportedly did not want to be seen with Gaetz in public, going as far as cancelling a House judiciary committee meet-andgreet when he found out Gaetz would be there.
“This explanation and his behavior flustered even his dinner pal Tucker,” Kimmel continued, playing a clip from Carlson’s interview post-mortem in which he called the Gaetz bit “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted”.
“This is a man who interviewed someone who claims Hillary Clinton was running a Satanic pedophile operation out of a pizza place,” Kimmel marveled. “So, there’s always a twist.”