When Hollywood elites gathered for the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday night, host Jimmy Kimmel didn’t hold his punches in going after President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Fox News watchers, and conservatives in general.
He first skewered Pence, over his faith and his opposition to gay marriage.
Kimmel joked that only two of the year’s nine Best Picture nominees had made more than $100 million–but that there was more to Hollywood than making money: Hollywood existed to stick a finger in the eye of conservatives.
“We don’t make films like [‘Call Me By Your Name’ for money,” Kimmel said, citing the gay pedophilia drama that was nominated for several Oscars. “We make them to upset Mike Pence.”
And then Kimmel attacked President Trump, citing actress Lupita N’yongo, who was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya–something Kimmel suggested Trump would find offensive.
He added, “Let the tweetstorm from the President’s toilet begin.”
Kimmel also laid into conservative Fox News viewers… for being old: “Oscar is 90 years old tonight,” he said, “which means he’s probably at home right now watching Fox News.”
Kimmel has emerged as one of President Trump’s strongest critics on television–using his late-night platform to mock the President, to spread falsehoods about Obamacare, and to weigh in on the gun control debate.
While the 2018 Oscars ceremony didn’t feature as many impassioned, anti-Trump speeches from winners as last year’s did, it’s clear that selecting Kimmel–and allowing him to make jokes about conservative leaders and voters–Hollywood’s message is still being heard loud and clear.
But the American people seem to be tuning it out: on Monday, the Oscars logged their lowest number of TV viewers in history.
