Jimmy Kimmel: Trump goes postal over Washington Post story

Jimmy Kimmel reads between the lines of President Donald Trump’s reaction to a story in the Washington Post.

Deciphering the true motivation behind one of President Donald Trump’s tweetstorms has become something of a science. And nobody in late night has studied it more than Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel was back in the lab Thursday night after President Trump went off on The Washington Post.

President Trump’s disdain for journalism and news outlets is well-documented. He hijacked the term “fake news” and applied to anything critical or unflattering written about him or his administration. Attacking CNN has become a favorite pastime of President Trump.

But the latest news outlet to catch President Trump’s attention is The Washington Post. The newspaper is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and has been targeted by the President in the past.

The Post ran a story reporting that President Trump asked Attorney General William Barr to hold a press conference declaring Trump did nothing wrong in his call to Ukraine. Barr reportedly refused to carry out the request.

President Trump lashed out on Twitter by saying that he never asked Barr to do that and that the Washington Post sources are fake. Those tweets got Jimmy Kimmel wondering just what actually happened and just what Donald Trump actually does as president.

Late night shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Late Night with Seth Meyers will incorporate President Trump’s tweets into monologues. But no other show seems to find as much joy in filtering through the tweets as Jimmy Kimmel Live!. This is the same show that went through a 130+ tweet weekend by the President not too long ago.

But Kimmel asks what else does anyone expect when tweeting and golfing are the only things President Trump seems to do. The angry tweets against The Washington Post only confirm the story as true, according to Kimmel.

The only thing Kimmel does agree with Trump on is the call for more fact-checkers. If President Trump was more fact-checking applied to newspapers then he better be open to more fact-checking applied to the White House.

The impeachment inquiry has brought with it a number of comparisons between President Richard Nixon and President Donald Trump. Kimmel adds to the parallels with an audio clip of President Nixon banning The Washington Post from the White House. That little bit of revenge didn’t help President Nixon so we’ll have to wait to see how closely President Trump follows Nixon’s playbook.