Jimmy Kimmel Apologizes For Debunked Video Suggesting That Mike Pence Carried Empty Boxes Of PPE
It seems Jimmy Kimmel missed Mike Pence‘s joke. Last night, the late night host offered a joke about Mike Pence based on a video that seemed to suggest the vice president was going to pretend to deliver empty boxes of personal protective equipment for the cameras.
In the video, Pence makes one trip from the delivery van to the front door of a Virginia nursing home. As he returns to the truck, Pence asks whether he can “carry the empty ones…Just for the camera.”
The clip was ripped online and by Kimmel. Because it was incomplete, the clip Kimmel showed did not make it clear that the vice president was actually making a joke.
Although the video has now been debunked, the vice president was still the subject of some harsh treatment online on Friday as the clipped video continued to circulate. The Biden campaign’s Deputy National Press Secretary was among the high profile figures to tweet about the incident, saying that the vice president shouldn’t carry the boxes for the camera, and should instead focus on getting Americans the medical equipment that they need, Deadline reports.
Kimmel even issued a statement which functioned as a half-apology after it became clear that the clip he aired was incomplete.
“It would appear that @vp was joking about carrying empty boxes for a staged publicity stunt. The full video reveals that he was carrying full boxes for a staged publicity stunt. My apologies. I know how dearly this administration values truth,” Kimmel tweeted.
Even in his apology, the late night host couldn’t resist making a biting comment about the current administration.
Pence’s Director of Campaign Communications, Jon Thompson, came after the late night host over the segment, and called Kimmel’s monologue “absolute garbage.” He said that the host should have played the full clip, which aired on C-SPAN, instead of the version that had been edited.
Even as Pence’s team has had to deal with this clip, news also broke Friday that a member of the vice president’s staff had tested positive for the coronavirus. President Trump called the aide “Katie,” a reference to Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, CNBC reports.
While Miller has tested positive for COVID-19, she claims to be asymptomatic. The news comes just a day after President Trump’s valet also tested positive for the virus. Trump said that he had “very little contact” with the person in question.
