Jimmy Kimmel offered two powerful and heartfelt commentaries on the Wednesday and Thursday episodes of his eponymous show regarding the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and they’re both worth watching.
Kimmel’s Tuesday show had been taped prior to the shooting, so Wednesday was his first time to comment on the tragic events. He broke down in tears while questioning how tragedies like this can “make sense to anyone.”
“Here we are again, on another day of mourning in this country,” said Kimmel. “Once again, we grieve for the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and whose families have been destroyed.”
Kimmel slammed Fox News and Republicans in Congress for “warn[ing] us not to politicize this…because they don’t want to speak about it. Because they know what they’ve done and they know what they haven’t done, and they know that it’s indefensible. So they’d rather sweep this under the rug.”
He singled out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), making it clear he wasn’t calling him “evil” but appealing to the senator’s humanity to “admit you made a mistake.”
Kimmel was more forceful on Wednesday, lambasting Cruz and calling out his “powerful” need for attention, highlighting recent media appearances.
“He has been everywhere this week doing interviews, pontificating in that little, ‘I care’ voice that he puts on, defending this disturbing allegiance these guys have to semi-automatic weapons,” he said. “Which Ted says aren’t the problem. The problem, according to Ted Cruz, is that schools need to be more like prisons.”
“Listen, Ted,” Kimmel continued, “I know you’d rather spend your days doing impressions of The Simpsons and googling stepmom porn, but at some point you might have to get down to it and do your job.”
Sigh. Your friendly neighborhood Mediaite newsletter correspondent initially contemplated drafting today’s communiqué to name Tucker Carlson as today’s winner, for the very salient points he made regarding the claims by Uvalde police and other Texas officials about their response to Tuesday’s mass shooting. It was Carlson’s moment to be the broken clock that’s actually telling accurate time. But then Tucker had to Tucker, and flipped our interpretation 180 degrees.
To be clear, the Fox News host’s remarks that it was “a moral crime at the very least” regarding reports that police entered the school to rescue their own children while blocking other parents from doing the same was spot on. He was also right to excoriate these public servants for what almost certainly were lies regarding the timeline of events and mind-boggling delay of almost an hour before entering to engage the shooter.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Mediaite