Jimmy Kimmel has once again criticized US President Donald Trump, this time targeting his handling of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! The 58-year-old host delivered the new comments during the opening monologue marking the fifth anniversary of the uprising.
Reflecting on the day a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol after the 2020 election, Kimmel said Trump tried to overturn an outcome that had been upheld as fair by courts across the country.
He called the effort an illegal attempt to cling to power and said the facts leave no other reasonable interpretation.
Kimmel said then-Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to block Biden’s victory angered Trump and fueled the violence.
Kimmel said Trump watched the attack on TV for hours before finally telling the rioters to leave. He called the delay “selfish,” “dangerous” and an attack on democracy.
The presenter also warned against what he described as attempts to rewrite the history of that day.
Kimmel’s comments came just hours after the Trump administration launched a White House website recalling them on January 6.
The site claims Democrats incited the “real insurrection” by certifying Biden’s victory and calls the rioters “peaceful patriotic protesters.”
It also claims that no law enforcement officers were killed as a result of the attack, despite the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick shortly afterwards and the subsequent suicides of four officers responding to the riot, as well as injuries to nearly 140 officers.
As one of his first acts as he began his second term in January 2025, Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack.
The site further accuses former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the House committee investigating January 6 of concocting an “insurrection” story.
Pelosi spokesman Ian Krager responded by calling the administration’s portrait “embarrassing” and rejecting claims that Pelosi was responsible for the Capitol’s security decisions.
Kimmel concluded his monologue by urging viewers not to forget the events of January 6, arguing that minimizing or reframing the violence risks erasing its meaning.
