Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Former Vice President Mike Pence. Fox News.
Jimmy Kimmel had choice words for all of them during his Friday night monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Each had, in their own way, slammed President Joe Biden’s latest effort to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, outlined Thursday. And each one did that Trumpian GOP thing where they repurpose the language of their critics to make a point. They all sounded like hypocritical blowhards.
Abbott tweeted about an Executive Order he’d signed “protecting Texans’ right to choose” whether or not to get a vaccine. Kimmel said: “I understand why the Greg Abbotts of the world are angry, the government’s trying to tell them what to do with their bodies. It’s outrageous that these Democrats think they can treat Republicans like [the Republicans] treat women. It’s ridiculous.” The crowd cheered.
Pence, meanwhile, went on Fox News and said Biden’s speech outlining the new push to protect the country “was unlike anything I’d ever heard from an American president,” adding “that’s not the way the American people expect to be spoken to by their elected leaders.”
Kimmel could only laugh and crack a few jokes at the rank hypocrisy in Pence’s words, after he spent four years sticking up for Donald Trump’s boorish and actively harmful behavior. He had more to say about Fox News, which aired the Pence segment and which has fueled much of the confusion surrounding the pandemic while “requiring their employees to get vaccinated or have COVID tests,” which Kimmel pointed out has been happening since June.
