Jimmy Kimmel Offers Some Very Flawed Logic For Wanting Trump on His Show

On Friday, Oct. 13, Good Morning America teased a new exclusive interview with Jimmy Kimmel. In the chat, the TV host discusses the political turn he's taken with Jimmy Kimmel Live!, his late-night talk show. In the past few months alone, he talked about his newborn son's open-heart surgery and the need for universal health care, slammed the GOP, and even made a tearful plea for gun control in the wake of the tragic Las Vegas shooting. It's clear Kimmel is making a lot of political noise, and it's yielding a (mostly) positive response from his liberal audience. That's why the fact that Kimmel suggests in his GMA interview that he should have Donald Trump on his show is a real record scratch.

Why the hell would Jimmy Kimmel Live! welcome Trump after all the fiery, angry speeches Kimmel has made against him? According to the interview, Kimmel thinks he can change Trump's mind. "Maybe this is crazy, but I feel like I could turn him around on a couple of things," Kimmel said. "I think he needs to be surrounded by better people."

But here's the thing: President Trump is not going to change his mind because Jimmy Kimmel sits him down in a comfortable armchair and asks, "What the hell, Donald?" Having Trump on the show would only further normalize him. It would only give him yet another spotlight to tout his own viewpoint from.

If Kimmel welcomes Trump on his show, he seems doomed to repeat a mistake fellow late-night host Jimmy Fallon made in 2016. Fallon brought Trump on The Tonight Show and conducted an alarmingly lighthearted chat that included ruffling the then-candidate's hair. In the wake of the interview, Fallon faced criticisms that he had gone "too easy" on Trump and that he hadn't called him out on his racist, sexist, and xenophobic behavior. By not saying anything, Fallon was, in essence, condoning everything.

Fallon has since steered clear of the whole Trump issue, claiming that he's "not that political" and much prefers pop culture to world news.

Kimmel would certainly give Trump a harder time and would presumably dig in on Trump's policies surrounding health care, immigration, women's rights, and more. But even if he does grill Trump on all these issues, it's almost laughable — and laughably arrogant — to assume he'll be able to change Trump's presidential behavior, let alone his mind. At the end of the day, he'll just be providing another big platform for Trump's ignorance. What's more, Kimmel is not a journalist. He's more of a celebrity than a news reporter. Tackling actual political policy with Trump may be a little out of his wheelhouse.

Ellen DeGeneres may have put it best when she explained why she'd turn Trump down during a recent interview with Megyn Kelly. "He is who he is. He has enough attention. He has his Twitter account and he has ways to get his message across. There's nothing I'm going to say to him that's gonna change him."

DeGeneres is right. Trump is who he is, and Kimmel's in-person pleas — much like the one's he's made on TV — aren't going to do anything to change him. In fact, there's an even greater chance Trump will twist any sort of interview into his favor. He won't say Kimmel opened his eyes to the realities of America. He'll almost certainly say Kimmel is another crazy liberal lunatic who spreads fake news and sets unfair traps. At this point, only one thing is clear: Trump's upside-down viewpoints aren't going to be flipped by a well-meaning-late night host. And so, Jimmy Kimmel, with all due respect, we hope you reconsider your invitation.