Jimmy Kimmel Apologizes for Deceptive Mike Pence Video

Jimmy Kimmel apologized for tweeting an edited video of Vice President Mike Pence. The original video shows Pence delivering personal protective equipment to a rehabilitation and healthcare center last Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia.

In the video, the vice president jokingly asks if he can bring the extra, empty boxes inside the care center “just for the camera.” In Kimmel’s edited version, it appears the vice president’s remark is sincere.

“How anyone can tell when Mike Pence is joking, I don’t know,” Kimmel said. “I didn’t know because I’d only watched part of the video. Turns out there were 29 minutes of this on C-SPAN that apparently indicate he was joking about carrying the empty boxes for the cameras, which again, I didn’t know because I do not have the mental endurance it requires to watch Mike Pence deliver boxes for 29 minutes on C-SPAN.”

Kimmel received backlash for his tweet during his show on Monday and the vice president’s team asked the host for a direct apology during his show. The host also claims to have received hate messages “wishing death on me, on my family, on my son. Some of them said they hope my son dies, they threatened my wife. There were hundreds of horrible, hateful, sometimes violent Twitter and Facebook posts.”

“I should have watched the whole thing, I guess. Bottom line is, I was wrong,” Kimmel said. “Apologizing to the Trump administration for spreading untruth is like apologizing to Barry Bonds for using steroids. It’s hard.”

President Donald Trump also got involved in the Mother’s Day “Twitter feud.”

“This really is the dumbest time to be alive,” Kimmel said. “I always assumed that if I got involved in some kind of a Twitter feud with the president it would be with President Kanye in 2028. But no, it came early.”