Last Night on Late-Night

Jimmy Kimmel Announced His Oscars Hosting Gig with a Donald Trump Burn

How many more can we expect at the ceremony?

It’s hardly a surprise that Jimmy Kimmel will host this year’s Academy Awards. He’s fresh off a successful Emmy hosting gig and, as the late-night host himself pointed out on Monday, he’s also conveniently located right across the street from where ABC—his home network—puts on the annual ceremony. Unsurprisingly, Kimmel was generally self effacing during his big announcement on Jimmy Kimmel Live. But he did manage to squeeze in one joke at someone else’s expense: Donald Trump.

“I got a very nice call of congratulations this morning from the president of Taiwan,” Kimmel joked. “And just to be clear, she called me, not the other way around.”

Kimmel was, of course, making fun of Trump’s phone conversation with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, which stirred up major controversy over the weekend. As political reporters note, such communication between the U.S. and Taiwan’s leadership is unprecedented in recent memory, thanks to the delicately constructed relationship between the U.S., Taiwan, and China, which maintains that Taiwan is a province. Since 1979, the U.S. has also adopted that position, engaging in trade with Taiwan but declining, as most countries do, to acknowledge its independence.

Can we expect more political jokes in the awards season ahead? Sadly for those who would like to treat the ceremonies as an escape from the real world, there’s a good chance that the answer is “yes.” Still, Kimmel is pondering at least one way to shake things up at the ceremony. You know how awards hosts and recipients alike have taken to handing out food at these events? In light of another 2016 election result, Kimmel has a different party favor in mind.

“You know, marijuana will be legal for recreational use in February,” Kimmel told his sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, whom he said should help him host. “Maybe you can pass some of that out on the red carpet before the show, and then we just see what happens.”

Something tells us very few people would object