Jimmy Kimmel Opens Up About 'Emotional Weekend' in the Midst of Health Care Debate
The late-night comedian is reflecting on a week where he found himself at the forefront of the fight to save healthcare.
Jimmy Kimmel had quite a week.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host used the top of his show on Monday to address finding himself at the center of the national healthcare debate after several emotional monologues led to a back-and-forth between him and Sen. Bill Cassidy, the co-sponsor of the proposed Graham-Cassidy bill.
"Unfortunately, the plan Sen. Cassidy and his colleague, Lindsay Graham, came up with – does not protect those parents – or their children – or anyone, really – and so I called him out on that. He was going around telling people it passed the Jimmy Kimmel Test and it doesn’t," the 49-year-old comedian said. "Obviously, this is personal thing for me."
"So this weekend, I was in three cities over the weekend -- and also I had a charity event Saturday night," he added. "And I met so many people who came up to me – strangers, almost everyone – many of them wanted to tell me that the Affordable Care Act, that our president and half our senators are so desperately trying to kill, saved or drastically improved their lives, members of their family’s lives and/or their children's lives."
"They came to me and said, 'Mr. Fallon, thank you for speaking out,'" Kimmel jokingly recalled.
With several Republican senators coming out against the bill, its likelihood of passing is in jeopardy, something Kimmel marveled at in his remarks.
"I still can’t believe we pulled it off, but we did it! It’s amazing, isn’t it?" he celebrated. "Which means this bill is almost certainly dead. Or at the very least it’s on life support, which isn’t covered."
"And the best news is, now I can go back to talking about the Kardashians," he concluded.
Watch his entire monologue below.
The late-night host also expressed his gratitude on social media, captioning a pic of his son, Billy, "Thanks to all who stood up and spoke out from this happy guy and his less-fortunate friends #GoodbyeGrahamCassidy."
What a smile on that brave little guy.
Kimmel's wife, Molly McNearney, recently spoke to ET with an update on Billy.
Watch the video below for what she had to say.