Jimmy Kimmel called Florida “America’s North Korea” during a recent broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC.
The comedian went after the Sunshine State, and particularly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for the state’s recently announced “python challenge,” where participants win prizes for capturing large snakes in an effort to protect the Everglades wetlands.
“In America’s North Korea, the Sunshine State, from time to time, we enjoy taking a look at what’s going on, and tonight, we are doing it again in a Gov. DeSantis edition of ‘This Week in Florida,'” Kimmel said before playing a clip of DeSantis announcing the challenge, prompting the comedian to joke that “all the prizes are pythons.”
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A spokeswoman for DeSantis slammed Kimmel’s segment, saying the stricter COVID-19 lockdown protocols employed by California, Michigan, and New York were “more reminiscent of dictatorships.”
“Florida isn’t America’s North Korea. Florida is America’s West Berlin,” she wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner. “Governor DeSantis has led the charge on defending individual rights and liberties, making Florida the oasis of freedom, while many other states have imposed draconian restrictions on their citizens. … Kimmel should visit Florida for himself before making any more embarrassing comments like that. I am sure he will enjoy our state and see firsthand how free we are compared to most people in his state.”
DeSantis praised the python challenge as instrumental in “protecting, restoring and preserving the Everglades for future generations.”
“At my direction, the state has taken unprecedented steps to increase python removal, including hosting the Python Challenge annually, and expanding access for python hunters to 134,000 acres of state parks and the Big Cypress National Preserve,” he continued. “As a result of our efforts, [Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission] had a record year for python removal in 2020, and has now removed more than 13,000 pythons since 2000. I’m proud to be here today to kick off registration for another Python Challenge, and I look forward to seeing this year’s results.”
Alleged comedian Jimmy Kimmel calls Florida “America’s North Korea.” pic.twitter.com/uGzutPLxC4
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 4, 2021
Participants in the 2020 Python Challenge removed 80 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades, according to the FWC’s press release.
Kimmel, a frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, has often sparred with those on the Right. He recently mocked Sen. Ted Cruz for Cruz’s criticism of an Army recruitment ad that the senator argued would lead to a “woke, emasculated” military.
“Ted Cruz, who, four years ago, took permanent residence up the a** of a man who beat him in every election by calling his wife ugly and slandering his elderly father, says this is emasculating,” Kimmel said in the segment last month. “Primarily because Ted Cruz is not human — he’s a moist, gelatinous tube worm whose elastic band pants are filled with an inky discharge every time he speaks.”
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Cruz hit back, saying, “When we played one-on-one, I kicked his a**. He has to live with that … forever. Rematch, punk?”
Representatives for ABC, which broadcasts Jimmy Kimmel Live!, did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.
