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Jimmy Kimmel used Thursday’s monologue to mock Trump’s record-low 34% approval rating, comparing it to Paul Blart and noting JD Vance polls two points higher.
Jimmy Kimmel spent Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue picking at the president’s softest spot. The late-night host cited a fresh Economist/YouGov poll putting Donald Trump‘s approval rating at 34 percent, then proceeded to compare it to a 17-year-old Kevin James comedy.
HuffPost ran the full quote. The outlet’s writeup of Kimmel’s poll-segment monologue and the JD Vance comparison that closed it captured the host’s framing of the new number and the political context around it.
The opening line was the headline. “Trump’s approval numbers, like his testicles, have sunk to an all-time low,” Kimmel said. “They are lower than they’ve ever been.”
The Mall Cop comparison was the punchline. “He has the same approval rating as Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” Kimmel said, pointing to the much-maligned 2009 Kevin James film’s matching 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
The JD Vance line was the closer. “He’s also two points behind JD Vance,” Kimmel said. “I don’t have a joke for that, I just want to make sure he knows he’s two points behind JD Vance.”
The numbers context is dire. The New York Times’s late-night column tracking the Kimmel poll segment and the broader Trump-mockery cycle on the network shows reports that the 34 percent figure represents Trump’s lowest approval point of his second term to date, driven by a cost-of-living crisis, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and a string of corruption allegations.
The White House already responded. Mashable’s rundown of White House spokesman Davis Ingle’s “ultimate poll” comeback and Kimmel’s instant rebuttal reports that spokesman Davis Ingle pointed to Trump’s 2024 election win as “the ultimate poll” when asked for comment on the new numbers.
Kimmel was not impressed. “OK, yeah,” he said, “but now it’s May of 2026 and everybody hates him.”
The polling beat has personal stakes for Kimmel. The host was the subject of a Trump and Melania Trump demand for his firing earlier this year over a joke that the first lady glowed “like an expectant widow.”
His response then was prologue. The Guardian’s April rundown of Kimmel’s reaction to the firing demand and his coverage of Trump’s running political missteps tracks the host’s ongoing posture of refusing to soft-pedal the administration’s controversies.
Trump’s history with polls is well documented. The president has previously sued over an unfavorable poll, a fact that puts particular weight on Kimmel’s choice to lead the segment with the 34 percent figure rather than bury it later in the show.
The midterms are roughly five months out. Kimmel’s framing of the polling-rate story, paired with similar segments from other late-night hosts, has become a near-nightly fixture in the run-up.
For Kimmel, the math is straightforward. The president whose administration demanded his firing earlier this year is now polling two points behind his own vice president, and the host is not going to let the moment pass quietly.
