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Photo: Frank Micelotta/Disney/Getty Images

If you just saw Donald Trump’s gloating Truth Social response to Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension on Thursday morning, you might think that the president was celebrating simply because he wants to see all of his left-leaning critics have their TV shows “CANCELLED” (as he inaccurately put it). But this goes way beyond Trump’s anger toward the late night hosts who jab him on a daily basis, such as Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers. Kimmel in particular has repeatedly infuriated Trump by creating viral moments criticizing his policies and mocking his tweets in front of celebrity A-listers at the Oscars.

Here’s a rundown of the big moments in the Trump-Kimmel beef.

Kimmel interviews candidate Trump in 2015

Some of Trump’s celebrity beefs pre-date his political career, but the Kimmel feud doesn’t appear to be one of them. While he routinely mocked Trump during his first presidential campaign, like every other late night host, Kimmel still had him on his show on December 17, 2015.

Kimmel didn’t go that easy on Trump; he pushed him on his proposed “Muslim ban” and pointed out that the bully from the Back to the Future films is based on him. But as the Los Angeles Times noted at the time, Trump’s response was “subdued”:

But Trump was uncharacteristically subdued throughout the show, laughing and smiling as Kimmel read him a made-up Trump-inspired children’s book titled “Winners Aren’t Losers” and even striking a conciliatory tone toward his Republican opponents.

“I would like to see the Republican Party come together,” Trump told Kimmel. “I’ve been a little bit divisive in the sense that I’ve been hitting people pretty hard.”

“A little bit, yeah,” Kimmel dead-panned, to laughter in the audience.

Kimmel makes emotional pitch to save Obamacare

Kimmel may have struck the final blow against Trump’s Obamacare repeal effort. Support for the GOP’s push was already small in May 2017 when the late night host’s heart-wrenching 13-minute monologue about protecting people with preexisting conditions went viral.

With tears in his eyes, Kimmel revealed that his son Billy was born with a heart condition, and said pre-Obamacare a child with that condition might not have received care if they didn’t have wealthy parents.

“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make,” Kimmel said. “I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?”

He delivered other passionate monologues opposing the bill, and thanked Senator John McCain when he torpedoed it with his famous thumbs down gesture.

Trump White House pressures Disney to censor Kimmel

In early 2018, Trump became so incensed at Kimmel that he had people in his administration call top Disney executives and urge them to rein him in. This wasn’t known at the time, and only emerged when Rolling Stone reported on the unsuccessful pressure campaign in February 2023:

The then-president, according to two former Trump administration officials, was so upset by Kimmel’s comedic jabs that he directed his White House staff to call up one of Disney’s top executives in Washington, D.C., to complain and demand action. (ABC, on which Jimmy Kimmel Live! has long aired, is owned by Disney.)

In at least two separate phone calls that occurred around the time Trump was finishing his first year in office, the White House conveyed the severity of his fury with Kimmel to Disney, the ex-officials tell Rolling Stone. Trump’s staff mentioned that the leader of the free world wanted the billion-dollar company to rein in the Trump-trashing ABC host, and that Trump felt that Kimmel had, in the characterization of one former senior administration official, been “very dishonest and doing things that [Trump] would have once sued over.”

People found this “bizarre,” according to the magazine, and people at Disney were “confused” by the White House’s attempts to make Kimmel tone down his anti-Trump humor. It’s unclear what specific jokes infuriated Trump.

Kimmel makes another emotional plea for gun-safety laws

The host teared up on air in a February 2018 monologue after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead and 14 others injured.

Kimmel begged Trump to “do something,” and get Congress to pass laws on gun safety. “Real laws that do everything possible to keep assault rifles out of the hands of people who are going to shoot our kids,” he said. “Go on TV and tell them to do that.”

“Tell these congressman and lobbyists who infest that swamp you said you were going to drain, force these allegedly Christian men and women who stuff their pockets with money from the NRA year after year after year to do something now, not later,” Kimmel continued. “You’ve done worse than nothing. You like to say this is a mental health issue, but one of your very first acts as president, Mr. Trump, was actually roll back the regulations that were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill. You did that.”

Kimmel mocks Trump’s “mean tweet” live at the Oscars

Toward the end of the 2024 Academy Awards broadcast, Kimmel, who was hosting, gave an impromptu performance of his recurring “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets” sketch.

“I just got a review: ‘Has there ever been a worst host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars?’” he read from his phone. “His opening was that of a less-than-average person trying too hard to be something which he is not and never can be.”

As the tirade veered off into jabs at “George Slopanopoulous” and a call to “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” it became clear Kimmel wasn’t reading a comment from some rando on the internet, but the then-former president, who had posted this to Truth Social during the show:

Six weeks later, Trump was still upset about Kimmel mocking him on “Hollywood’s biggest night.” He posted this follow-up rant, which included multiple errors (the post suggests Kimmel botched the Best Picture announcement, but it was Al Pacino):

Trump says Kimmel is “NEXT to go” after Colbert

CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in July. While CBS executives claimed this was “purely a financial decision,” many speculated the real point was to curry favor with the Trump administration amid a pending merger between CBS owner Paramount and Skydance.

Trump predicted “Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go” in a Truth Social post:

And he made the same prediction during an August 6 press conference.

“Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next,” Trump said. “They’re gonna be going. I hear they’re gonna be going. I don’t know, but I would imagine because they’d get– you know, Colbert has better ratings than Kimmel or Fallon.”

President Trump: “[Stephen] Colbert has no talent. I could take anybody here. I could go outside, down the street, and pick up couple of people that do just as well or better.”"Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next…Howard Stern…He got terminated? When he… pic.twitter.com/pGJHYjuy8s

— Polymarket Intel (@PolymarketIntel) August 6, 2025

Trump (incorrectly) declares Kimmel has been “CANCELLED”

Trump took time out from his U.K. visit to celebrate the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live! — though that isn’t actually what happened. ABC indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s show after two prominent station groups said they would preempt airings of the program following comments the host made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Trump posted on Truth Social:

Trump’s Beef With Jimmy Kimmel: A Brief History

Trump’s Beef With Jimmy Kimmel: A Brief History