Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late-night personality best known for his racist "comedy," is hosting a fundraiser for President Joe Biden in Los Angeles next week to "help keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office." Celebrity actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts are expected to attend, as is celebrity author and film producer Barack Obama.
"Joe made me promise extra malarkey and malarkey there will be," Kimmel wrote in a fundraising email advertising the event. "Our democracy may not survive another four years of a Trump presidency." Tickets start at $250 and run as high as $500,000 for the "event chair package," which includes a photo-op with the two presidents.
Kimmel, who emceed one of the lowest-rated Oscars ceremonies of all time in 2018, is not the first late-night "comedian" to host a celebrity-packed fundraiser for Democrats. Earlier this year, Stephen Colbert of CBS interviewed Biden, Obama, and former president Bill Clinton at Radio City Music Hall. The exclusive event, which featured performances by Queen Latifah and the morbidly obese pop star Lizzo, reportedly raised $26 million for the president's reelection campaign.
ABC is scheduled to host the second and final Biden-Trump debate in September. Representatives for the network and parent company Disney did not return a request for comment.
Kimmel is not even the first ABC host to be criticized for being a Democratic Party shill. The network's premier news anchor, former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos, was forced to apologize after the Washington Free Beacon exposed him in 2015 for failing to disclose his $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation.
It's unclear why Bill Clinton, a notorious sex pest whose legacy was "reevaluated" in light of the so-called #MeToo movement, was not invited to appear with Kimmel in Los Angeles after taking part in the New York fundraiser with Colbert.