Transcript of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" opening monologue, Monday September 15th 2025

# Transcript of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" opening monologue, Monday September 15th 2025

Video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j3YdxNSzTk

Jimmy Kimmel: Thank you for joining us after the Monday Night Football doubleheader from Houston and Las Vegas. The Texans played Tampa Bay tonight, the Raiders hosted the Chargers.

And this morning at 7:46 a.m., our president — who is staunchly pro-concussion — he loves his CTEs - weighed in on the games on Sunday. Y'know, He sat up in bed and posted: “The NFL has to get rid of that ridiculous-looking new kickoff rule. How can they make such a big and sweeping change so easily and quickly?"

[pauses and looks around]

“It’s at least as dangerous as the normal kickoff and looks like hell. "Sissy" football is bad for America and bad for the NFL.”

Says the guy who wakes up in the morning and sprays his head with Aqua Net. Truth be told loudly complaining about the NFL is what a man his age should be doing right now. Maybe he’ll send in the National Guard to fix it.

And then 20 minutes later, he’s onto an entirely different subject - TikTok. His Treasury Secretary announced that they have a framework of a deal to sell TikTok to an American company. Last year Congress voted to ban TikTok unless the Chinese company that owns it sold it to a U.S. company.

This deal is very important to President Trump because TikTok is his son Don Jr.’s only friend. Trump loves TikTok. He thinks it helps him get elected. So he kept extending the deadline to force the sale, and now it’s rumored that TikTok’s assets have been sold to 81-year-old MAGA billionaire Larry Ellison

[Image of Ellison shown]

Seen here revealing his secret plan to kill James Bond.

So now, instead of the Chinese government harvesting our thoughts, interests, and personal information, Trump’s buddy will have them instead. At least it's somebody we can trust though, right?

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism. But on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.

[Video clip of Trump answering questions out side the White House]

Reporter: May I ask, sir, personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half?

Donald Trump: I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks — they just started the construction for the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years. And it’s going to be a beauty.

[Video clip over]

Jimmy Kimmel: Yes. He’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction. Demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?

And it didn’t just happen once.

[Video clip of President Trump on Fox and Friends, on Fox News]

Donald Trump (clip): I was in the midst of, you know, building a great — for 150 years, they’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House, right? They [didn't|don't] have a ballroom, they have to use tents on the lawn for President Xi when he comes out. If it rains, it’s a wipeout. And, so, I was with the architects. It’s going to be incredible. And they came and they said, “Charlie Kirk” is dead. I didn’t know what they meant, he was dead. “Charlie Kirk was shot”. And they - so, they thought he was dead ’cause it was so horrific, you know. And I said, “Dead?”

[Video clip over]

Jimmy Kimmel: And then we installed the most beautiful chandelier you — sconces you wouldn’t believe. There’s something wrong with him, there really is. I mean, who thinks like that?

And why are we building a $200 million ballroom in the White House? Is it possible he’s doing it intentionally so we can be mad about that instead of the Epstein list? By the time he’s out of office, the White House will have slot machines and a water slide.

Trump is in major change-the-subject mode; on Friday, he stopped by the always-friendly morning crew at Fox. Whenever Trump goes on Fox and  Friends, it’s funny because the hosts are so eager for him to be reasonable, they spell it all out for him. They desperately want to avoid having to nod along with anything crazy or contradict him, so they give him the question and their preferred answer too.

[Video clip of President Trump on Fox and Friends, on Fox News]

Fox host (clip): Is the message to the right — the people that are gonna go, “I want revenge” — not to have revenge? Charlie Kirk would not want revenge?

Donald Trump (clip): We want revenge at the voter—box

Fox host (clip): That's - ballot box - that's where to go.

[Video clip over]

Jimmy Kimmel: Okay, good answer, right? Take it to the ballot box. That’s reasonable. That’s almost presidential. But that’s the thing: he can never just stop right there.

[Video clip of President Trump on Fox and Friends, on Fox News]

Donald Trump (clip): I can’t really say the ballot box because in some cases, like California doesn’t have ballot boxes.

[Video clip over]

Jimmy Kimmel: Oh. Well, in that case, begin The Purge.

For the record, we live in California. We do have ballot boxes. We have ballot boxes, we’ve got mailboxes, we have lunchboxes — we have all kinds of boxes. You should come see them some time. We’ll give you a toolbox. You can live in it.

And then we have the head of the FBI, this character Kash Patel, who so far has handled this investigation into the murder of Charlie Kirk like a kid who didn’t read the book, B.S.ing his way through an oral report.

[Video clip of Kash Patel being interviewed remotely by video on Fox and Friends, on Fox News]

Reporter (clip): So, in the 24 hours after, when we were still looking for the guy, I know you posted that we got him, and that ended up not being true.

Kash Patel (clip): The job of the FBI is not just to manhunt the actual suspect who did the killing - or suspects - but it’s also eliminate targets and eliminate subjects who are not involved in the process and that’s what we were doing. Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not. I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing it.

[Video clip over]

Jimmy Kimmel: Which was claiming we caught the killer when we had not.

Kash Patel always looks like he just got hit by a Volkswagen.

Governor of Utah, Governor Spencer Cox, has been a rare voice of sanity after what happened. In a statement he urged Americans to choose humanity, connection, and love, and even encouraged us to listen to people we disagree with.

Which is not the plan, according to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Clan mom wrote today: “There’s nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us. They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them, peacefully debated ideas. Then millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead. To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce.”

Same thing her husband said about two and a half years ago.

But a peaceful national divorce. How would that work? You get Florida, we get Vermont? I mean, we share custody of Disney World every other weekend?

She’s right — the right - it feels like we are all stuck in a marriage to Marjorie Taylor Greene right now.

[monologue continues on other topics...]