Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel addressed the backlash that ensued after he tweeted a deceptively edited video of Vice President Mike Pence, for which he has already apologized.
The vice president, while recently delivering personal protective equipment to a local rehabilitation and healthcare center, jokingly asked if he could bring in additional empty boxes “just for the camera.” Kimmel, however, used an abridged version of the clip that made it seem as if Pence’s remark was serious.
The comedian issued an apology and deleted the tweet on Friday, acknowledging that the “full video reveals that he was carrying full boxes for a staged publicity stunt.” He also addressed the backlash on his show Monday, noting that he received an email from the vice president’s office requesting an on-air apology.
“How anyone can tell when Mike Pence is joking, I don’t know,” the host said. “I didn’t know because I’d only watched part of the video. Turns out there were 29 minutes of this on C-SPAN that apparently indicate he was joking about carrying the empty boxes for the cameras, which again, I didn’t know because I do not have the mental endurance it requires to watch Mike Pence deliver boxes for 29 minutes on C-SPAN.”
“But I should have watched the whole thing, I guess. Bottom line is, I was wrong,” he continued. “Apologizing to the Trump administration for spreading untruth is like apologizing to Barry Bonds for using steroids. It’s hard.”
Kimmel also blasted “the outpouring of venom” from Trump supporters, whom he said “wish[ed] death on me, on my family, on my son.”
This is absolute garbage spread by @JimmyKimmel. Pence is clearly joking about empty boxes & if Kimmel showed the full clip from CSPAN, not the one he selectively edited, you see and hear it. #FakeNews https://t.co/Hy2oc5xhPe https://t.co/5hFsfxKy9J
— Jon Thompson (@JonThompsonDC) May 8, 2020
The vice president visited the Woodbine Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Virginia, last Thursday to deliver PPE from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the facility. After he helped unload boxes from a van, he was told that the remaining boxes were empty, implying that they didn’t need to be unloaded from the car, to which Pence jokingly asked if he could “carry the empty ones just for the camera.”
The extended version of the clip showed the vice president unloading boxes from the van and making the “just for the camera” quip about empty boxes before closing the van doors.
