Commentary Culture Investigations

One theme of ABC’s 2026 Jimmy Kimmel Live! summer guest hosts is their desire to portray themselves as some sort of victim whenever someone criticizes them. On Wednesday, Jelly Roll continued his week of going after his critics by claiming, “I’m really starting to feel like my pal, Jimmy Kimmel.”Jelly Roll teed up a clip of Fox News’s Jesse Watters by claiming it is duty to tell jokes about President Trump, “Now, I have been poking fun at POTUS over the past few nights, trying to fulfill my duties as a late-night comedian. It has gotten a lot of reactions from a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. But today I’m really starting to feel like my pal, Jimmy Kimmel, because my monologues caught the attention of the gang over at Fox News.”In the clip, Watters was shown declaring, “Happy TDS Tuesday. Primetime’s second-favorite day of the week. We’re raising awareness for one of the most infectious mind viruses sweeping the nation: Trump Derangement Syndrome. [jump cut] Next up to bat: Jelly Roll. They should put a warning label on Ozempic: ‘Side effects could increase risk of TDS, if you notice signs like irritability, depression, trouble sleeping, please see a doctor.’” Jimmy Kimmel guest host Jelly Roll went after his critics again last night, “Now, I have been poking fun at POTUS over the past few nights, trying to fulfill my duties as a late-night comedian. It’s gotten a lot of reactions from a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. But… pic.twitter.com/dYg9aKJdAA— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 27, 2026 Jelly Roll didn’t play it, but the part from Monday’s show that Watters labeled TDS was, “Well, Mr. President. From one fat pig to another, take it from me that physical fitness is very important, and trust me, you’ll be happy to see your penis again.”As for Jelly Roll’s reaction to Watters, he retorted, “Okay, first of all, Jesse. I’ll have you know, Ozempic is the only drug I haven’t tried. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I lost weight the old-fashioned way. Cocaine! No, seriously, I got in shape before the GLP-1 craze started, and I’m kind of proud of the fact that I did it through diet and exercise. But I also kind of feel like a dude who bought the last horse and buggy day before they started selling cars.”Getting back to Trump, he added, “By the way, I can’t believe out of all the jokes I’ve told the past few nights, one that really seemed to make people mad about what I said about the president is when I said he was overweight. I thought fat-on-fat crime was okay! I mean, we can debate whether this president is mentally fit. But I think we can all agree he is certainly not physically fit.”For liberals, Jimmy Kimmel is a free speech hero, and this summer has seen his guest hosts try to win some of that glory for themselves by portraying themselves as victims or attacking their critics whenever they point out that they said something dumb. If Jelly Roll finds it odd, we are talking about the fat jokes we can also talk about the accusation he made that Trump is racist.Here is a transcript for the August 26 show:ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!8/26/202511:38 PM ETJELLY ROLL: Now, I have been poking fun at POTUS over the past few nights, trying to fulfill my duties as a late-night comedian. It has gotten a lot of reactions from a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. But today I’m really starting to feel like my pal, Jimmy Kimmel, because my monologues caught the attention of the gang over at Fox News.JESSE WATTERS: Happy TDS Tuesday. Primetime’s second-favorite day of the week. We’re raising awareness for one of the most infectious mind viruses sweeping the nation: Trump Derangement Syndrome. [jump cut] Next up to bat: Jelly Roll. They should put a warning label on Ozempic: “Side effects could increase risk of TDS, if you notice signs like irritability, depression, trouble sleeping, please see a doctor.”JELLY ROLL: Okay, first of all, Jesse. I’ll have you know, Ozempic is the only drug I haven’t tried. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I lost weight the old-fashioned way. Cocaine! No, seriously, I got in shape before the GLP-1 craze started, and I’m kind of proud of the fact that I did it through diet and exercise. But I also kind of feel like a dude who bought the last horse and buggy day before they started selling cars.By the way, I can’t believe out of all the jokes I’ve told the past few nights, one that really seemed to make people mad about what I said about the president is when I said he was overweight. I thought fat-on-fat crime was okay! I mean, we can debate whether this president is mentally fit. But I think we can all agree he is certainly not physically fit.

The problem Third Way set out to identify endures, and it endures because the left’s linguistic signifiers are only a symptom of it.

Five years ago, the war in Afghanistan claimed its final martyred Americans: 13 service members killed (and dozens of others wounded) in a bombing attack on Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan as final evacuation of American troops was ongoing. None of the broadcast network evening newscasts paused to honor the fallen.There was a solemn Pentagon ceremony honoring three Marines who performed heroic actions that day, and whose awards were upgraded after an investigation. Per Fox News:Secretary of War Pete Hegseth upgraded valor awards Wednesday for three Marines who risked their lives to save others during the deadly Abbey Gate bombing, saying their original award submissions were “inappropriately” downgraded after one of the darkest days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “For half a decade, this building allowed bureaucratic caution, or maybe politics, to stand in the way of proper recognition,” Hegseth said during a Pentagon ceremony marking exactly five years since the Aug. 26, 2021, terrorist attack.”Today, on this milestone anniversary, we declare that those days are over.”Hegseth presented upgraded Bronze Star Medals with “V” devices for valor to Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Eby and Lance Cpl. Jordan Houston. Cpl. Michael Gretzon received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a “V” device for valor. The article further notes that there is a trove of classified documents on the Afghanistan that was recently discovered, “stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found.” It is simply galling that the networks made no time for this story.Instead, ABC’s World News Tonight covered a third O’Hare tire blowout in as many days. The CBS Evening News covered the California mom arrested for smashing a school bus window and pulling her kid out, and NBC Nightly News aired bodycam video of the arrest of 49ers owner Jed York on prostitution charges. All of these on A-block.Even with the untimely passing of Dolly Parton still completely dominating the news, there was no excuse for the elitist Media Evening News looking the other way as America remembers the sacrifices made on August 26th, 2021, the horrific decisions (under a friendly administration) that culminated in the bombing of Abbey Gate.

Christopher F. Rufo & Kenneth Schrupp, CJ How public-sector unions harvest taxpayer cash and rule the state.

Alexander Nazaryan, New York Times The novelist Michael Connelly knows he is putting his reputation on the line with the podcast “Killer in the Code.” But despite critics’ skepticism, he…

Matt Shapiro, Daily Wire The entire vibe over the last 12 months has become substantially more negative against new data centers.

Jeremy Portnoy, RealClearInvestigations Prostitution is not a legitimate business under most U.S. laws — except the federal tax code.

A professor at Case Western admits that many post-Dobbs predictions made by supporters of legal abortion haven’t come to fruition.

Michael Luciano at Mediaite is channeling Mehdi Hasan’s umbrage under the headline: Some Former and Current CNN Staffers Are Reportedly ‘Disappointed’ With Dana Bash’s ‘Crazy’ and ‘Biased’ Coverage of Israel and GazaLuciano was quoting from Justin Baragona’s Bash-bashing article from Zeteo’s “Ragebait” newsletter – and naturally the “former and current CNN staffers” are dropping anonymous bombs, as usual. 

Screenshot from Snapstream/CNN

The outrage came after Bash appeared on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday and agreed with Maher as he mocked Democrats for calling Israel’s military action in Gaza a “genocide.” Maher said “they’re big on buzzwords and lawn signs.” Bash replied, “And likes on social media.” Horrors! Baragona’s article asked how could Bash be objective now? But the anonymous Israel-bashers don’t really want neutrality. They want a blatant bias. “I think that Dana, her background, and her pattern of behaviors are pretty consistent,” a CNN insider told Zeteo. “She’s a huge advocate for the state of Israel, and just doesn’t really conceal that very well.” A former CNN staffer noted to Zeteo that Bash’s State of the Union co-host, Jake Tapper, who is also a strong supporter of Israel, has nevertheless “let the Israeli government have it because those are the facts.” The piece also said Wolf Blitzer, who once worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has been fairly “even-handed” in his coverage of Israel and Gaza. Did you catch that? You have to trash the Israeli government, “because those are the facts.” Journalists constantly confuse their opinions with “the facts.” Mediaite added Zeteo’s hot take: “It’s the way that Bash conducts herself on air that CNN sources pointed to as evidence of her personally ‘crazy’ and ‘biased’ approach towards covering Israel and Gaza, especially since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.”It was apparently crazy for Bash to be alarmed two years ago that Jewish college students didn’t feel safe on campus during “pro-Palestinian” protests: “They lost the plot,” she said on CNN in May 2024. “They‘re calling for a ceasefire. Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages.” She added, “What you just saw is 2024 in Los Angeles. Hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe, and I do not say that lightly.”“You know, Dana Bash has said all these stupid things about how there was a ceasefire on October 6, as if everything was just completely hunky-dory the day before the 7th happened,” a former CNN staffer told Zeteo, referring to that segment.Whether Baragona is quoting two anonymous CNNers or three, they all seem to think it’s rude to criticize the Hamas slaughter on October 7. From there, it was on to defending radical Rep. Rashida Tlaib from the Jews at CNN. At least Mediaite ended with a CNN statement brushing back: “To use Dana, or any journalist’s identity, to cast suspicion on their integrity as a journalist is repugnant and says a lot more about the bias of those making the allegations than anything being alleged about CNN.” 

Katie Paul, Reuters To make its workforce “AI native,” Meta explored slashing the size of many teams across the company by as much as 60% in two waves, internal documents show. Staff…