Jimmy Kimmel trumps Sen. Cassidy's 'all-comedians-are-dummies card,' explains Cassidy's health bill
Jimmy Kimmel read Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) the riot act on Tuesday's Jimmy Kimmel Live, explaining how Cassidy lied to him when he promised to support a bill that protects people with pre-existing conditions. On Wednesday, Cassidy sadly shook his head and said Kimmel just doesn't understand the bill, prompting a Politico analysis with the headline: "Kimmel, not Cassidy, is right on health care, analysts say." Kimmel tweeted that story out, but did not mention it on Wednesday night's show. He did, however, push back against some high-profile personalities who dismissed his critique of the Graham-Cassidy bill as uninformed.
Cassidy "either doesn't understand his own bill or he lied to me, it's as simple as that," Kimmel said, giving a short but pretty cogent rundown of some problems with the legislation. On CNN, Cassidy "played the all-comedians-are-dummies card," Kimmel said, but "could it be, Sen. Cassidy, that the problem is that I do understand and you got caught with your GOPenis out?"
"I don't want to turn this into a Kanye-and-Taylor Swift type situation," he said, but Cassidy came on his show, promised he would oppose any bill that didn't meet his "Jimmy Kimmel Test," then sponsored what is, "by many accounts, the worst health-care bill yet," a point Kimmel illustrated by showing an MLB pitch to the nuts. He got a little personal with Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), and — in a backhanded-complimentary way — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who does bear some resemblance to Kimmel's Grandma Jane.
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President Trump is all-in on the bill, but Kimmel said Trump only cares about defeating ObamaCare. "Can you imagine Donald Trump actually sitting down to read a health-care bill?" he asked. "It's like trying to imagine a dog doing your taxes — it just doesn't compute, you know? But I don't necessarily blame him. I did more homework this week than all my years of college combined. This health-care bill, it's confusing, especially for people who aren't experts in the field." So he tried to make it easier to understand by imagining himself as a customer at a coffee shop where the GOP Senate was a terrible barista. He ended by noting that while people "liked" his monologue from yesterday, they didn't flood phone lines, so he put up the numbers for five key GOP senators. Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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