Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returned on air on ABC on 23 September after a few days of ‘indefinite suspension’ for his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. In his monologue on 16 September, he wrongly suggested that Kirk’s killer was a fellow supporter of President Trump.
His return was an undeniable triumph: the new episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! drew 6.2 million viewers, and the video of Kimmel’s monologue has received 22 million views on YouTube. However, that triumph was short-lived: Kimmel’s ratings dropped by about 60 per cent overnight for the second episode, and further slipped back to his pre-suspension levels, to 1.7–1.8 million viewers.
With his contract up in May 2026, no wonder that Kimmel is on the lookout for another ‘big bang’ to boost his viewership.
On Thursday, 9 October he appeared on the online interview show Bloomberg Screentime, where he was interviewed by Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw. Kimmel was asked if he would have FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr (who was accused by some of pressuring affiliates to drop his show in the wake of the infamous Charlie Kirk comments) or President Trump on his show. He passed on the first proposed guest. However, surprisingly, he did agree to potentially having President Trump on his show.
‘I’d love to have Trump on the show, for sure,’ the comedian answered, then adding: ‘All right, I’ll ask him.’
What also might be surprising to many is that Donald Trump has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! before, and he did so after he announced his presidential run. He was a guest on the programme in December 2015—and it was not even a confrontational interview…
Would President Trump ever return to the show? Given that, for the last nine years, Kimmel used his airtime on one of the major TV networks and his team of writers to ridicule him and his surrogates exclusively in his monologues, that is unlikely. However, there is a slim chance the President would view the invitation as an opportunity to hit back at one of his harshest critics.
Kimmel’s fellow late-night host Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show on NBC has branched out to a right-wing audience in the past, and it has worked out for him. In August 2025, he had Fox News host and comedian Greg Gutfeld—who has the highest ratings in late-night TV, around 3.3 million viewers per night—on his show as a guest. The Tonight Show had an around 30-per-cent jump in ratings, and overtook Jimmy Kimmel’s show in viewership for the night.
One thing is for sure: after all the headache Kimmel has caused ABC executives recently, they would certainly like to see him have President Trump on his show for a guaranteed ratings boost. It is now only up to Trump if he accepts the invite—which is where this hypothetical will likely end.
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