When Dr.Phil McGraw and Jimmy Kimmel Had an Awkward Confrontation About Donald Trump
Jimmy Kimmel has never shied away from publicly criticizing the former president Donald Trump. When the conversation turned to the Republican leader in a 2016 interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, Kimmel showed a more provocative side. As per The Things, the late night host requested a Trump diagnosis. Instead, McGraw objected to what Kimmel had said in the past. "You just said I was a quack. Not with me, but you say it in the intro." Whereupon Kimmel's expression clearly shifted. He responded, "I don't say that, take that back. I don't think you're a quack, but you're on TV." Much to Kimmel's frustration the renowned author praised Trump instead, “I like Donald Trump, I think he gets a bad rap on some stuff and he scares the bejeebers out of me on other stuff,” he continued. “but at some point he’s going to have to replace some his adjectives with verbs and we’ll see what that amounts to.”
“I wonder sometimes just exactly how diplomacy would play out with him. Let’s say we were in a real tight, tense situation with another world power and he decided to make shit up,” McGraw said. “If he decided to claim that we had 4,000 submarines in their harbor and we didn’t have any or something. I just wonder if he might lack in diplomacy.” Throughout the discussion, Kimmel could be seen persistently attempting to extract a criticism of Trump from McGraw. Fans couldn't help but notice the awkward moments between the two.
They expressed their opinion on YouTube in the comments section below the video, One fan wrote,"Is there tension between Jimmy and Dr Phil?" A second fan responded, "To be fair, Letterman began this sort of relationship with Dr. Phil, and Jimmy sort of borrowed the schtick." "I like how Dr. Phil doesn't come right out and say he disapproves of Trump, despite how much Kimmel was pushing," a third fan commented. "I want him to just say how he really feels but I can tell he’s holding back in this interview," a fourth fan said.
Kimmel doesn't appear to be backing down from his taunts directed at the 2024 GOP front-runner, at one point, he was even prepared to resign from his position rather than hold back from criticizing Trump. “There was at one time, maybe, I don’t know, right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing where … that was kind of hinted at, but I just said, ‘Listen, I get it. I don’t disagree. I mean, you’re right." He continued, "I just said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, I understand and I don’t begrudge you for it, but I’m not going to do that. So if you want somebody else to host the show, then that’s fine. That’s OK with me. I’m just not going to do it like that’ … I have lost half of my fans — maybe more than that."
