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Despots have always hated being beaten to the punchline
The Independent
|September 25, 2025
When Donald Trump attacked Jimmy Kimmel during the Oscars, Kimmel simply read Trump's rants aloud, letting the words expose the smallness behind the bluster (Disney)
On Tuesday evening, Jimmy Kimmel returned to late-night television, and so Donald Trump has reacquired one of his most persistent and most effective critics.
Why are comedians so much better than politicians at criticising Donald Trump? The answer is simple. It has always been thus. Comedy cuts through the nonsense and speaks to the gut in the way senators and governors cannot. Donald Trump understands this, and so for him, it is intolerable.
Trump reacts more furiously to comedy monologues than to Senate speeches. He spends more time complaining about Saturday Night Live than about editorials in The New York Times. Kimmel and others have got under his skin. Senators can oppose Trump's policies, but a comedian can rob him of his aura of authority, and that is the greater threat. When the weapon of choice is wit, Trump and his ilk are unarmed.
This story is from the September 25, 2025 edition of The Independent.
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