Jimmy Kimmel has expressed his faux concern over reports of former President Donald Trump’s alleged declining mental state, calling it “very scary.”
The laughable assertion came while Kimmel, who presided over the Los Angeles fundraiser that visibly mentally deteriorating President Joe Biden had to be led out of by hand when he froze on stage, took shots at the former president while interviewing the author of Apprentice in Wonderland.
Variety Co-Editor-in-Chief Ramin Setoodeh, who interviewed Trump six times, wrote the book about the period Trump spend hosting his hit reality series The Apprentice from 2008 to 2015.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday, Setoodeh detailed his interviews with the 78-year-old Trump, describing the experience as “challenging” due to Trump’s “meandering and confusing” stories.
Setoodeh told Kimmel that Trump frequently repeated himself and his stories were riddled with inaccuracies.
Soundbites that he parroted during an interview promoting the book with CNN host Kaitlan Collins.
“He’s goes from one story to the next, he struggles with the chronology of events,” Setoodeh elaborated.
Author who interviewed Trump six times: There were some cognitive questions… he would from time to time become confused. He confidently told me that Joan Rivers voted for him when he ran for President and she died 2014. pic.twitter.com/QKf7y8dWEv
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 19, 2024
“He seems very upset that he wasn’t respected by certain celebrities in the White House, and then he’d go to a story about The Apprentice,” the author criticized, despite the show literally being the subject of the interviews.
“There were some cognitive questions about where he was and what he was thinking,” Setoodeh claimed. “He would from time to time become confused.”
Collins inquired about an anecdote about the late Joan Rivers, to which Setoodeh responded, “He definitely told me and declared that Rivers voted for him when he ran for president.”
Rivers died in 2014, two years before the 2016 presidential election.
“So he’s right. Dead people are voting!” Kimmel cracked about Trump’s election fraud claims. “Maybe she voted with her Ouija board.”
Setoodeh told Kimmel about a meeting after Biden was already in office, where Trump seemed to believe he was still president, excusing himself to “handle the Afghanistan.”
“That’s gotta be his code word for the toilet, right? I gotta make the Afghanistan,” Kimmel quipped.
“It’s very scary to think that the guy who was telling us to inject bleach into our veins is just now deteriorating mentally,” he added.
“That would mean that when he was drawing in Sharpie on the weather maps he was fine.”
Kimmel was referring to Trump’s 2019 Hurricane Dorian–Alabama controversy, which is also called “Sharpiegate.”
When Hurricane Dorian approached the U.S. in September of that year, Trump held a briefing and incorrectly included Alabama among the states likely to be hit by the natural disaster.
The weather service assured frightened residents that Alabama was not threatened by the Hurricane, but Trump reportedly plowed forward and showed journalists a weather map seemingly altered with a black marker to include Alabama.
Elsewhere in Setoodeh’s book he claimed Trump had an “obsession” with far-left Will & Grace star Debra Messing.
Setoodeh noted that Trump frequently mentioned Messing during their interviews, asking questions about her and divulging his interest in the actress.
“Trump still remembers the day he met Messing,” wrote Setoodeh, noting it was during the second season of The Apprentice.
‘She came up to me with her beautiful red hair,’ Trump says about Messing, pausing on this detail a beat too long. ‘And she said, “Sir—I love you! Thank God for you! You’re saving the network, and you’re saving my show.” Because in that world, which I know a lot about now, when you have a hit, a lead-in, it’s a massive difference,'” an excerpt from the book read.
“‘She was so thankful,’ Trump remarked about his fellow NBC star. “‘She said, “I can’t thank you enough.” Do you believe this? I’ve been watching her. And I’m saying, “She’d do anything for me.”‘
“She was so effusive,” Trump wrapped up in the excerpt. “And when I see the hatred coming out of her mouth today, it’s incredible.”
Messing has trolled Trump on social media since his 2016 presidential campaign. In 2020, she went as far as comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler.
Setoodeh wrote that Trump’s preoccupation stemmed from his feeling of betrayal by Messing after her public criticism.
Trump claimed that Messing was “begging for acceptance” as she told him that what he had done for her show, which was the lead in to The Apprentice, and NBC “will never be forgotten.”
“Well, it was forgotten,” Trump was quoted saying. “She was just a nasty person. Her and many others. So many people have come up to me over the years and said, “Thank you!” Once I ran for office, that stopped.'”
Trump also confessed to Setoodeh that he had a crush on Messing, who he “always thought was quite attractive.”
“Debra Messing was so thankful,” he stated in the excerpt. “And then I watch her today, and it’s like she’s a raving mess.”