Late‑night TV did not hold back Thursday after President Donald Trump ended up with a Nobel Peace Prize medal he never earned, and Jimmy Kimmel delivered a monologue that was equal parts mockery and political jujitsu. Kimmel tore into the spectacle on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, skewering Trump in a way that made clear this wasn’t just comedy — it was commentary on ego, absurdity, and America’s latest political performance art.
The punchline? Trump’s new favorite accessory — the Nobel Peace Prize medal — is only nominally his. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the actual 2025 prize winner, presented her medal to Trump in a gold frame during a White House meeting. Kimmel’s framing was brutal: “Rarely does a president yank a Nobel Prize off of someone’s neck,” he said, “He’s back in the Oval Office sucking on it like a pacifier.”
The host didn’t let up there. He mocked the optics of Trump’s glee, asking a rhetorical question nobody with eyes could seriously answer: “Have you ever seen anyone happier than that for winning this prize he didn’t even win?”
Kimmel even jabbed at the trinket diplomacy aspect of the whole episode — specifically the lesser gifts exchanged. While Machado gave the medal, Trump reportedly gave her a MAGA mug as a parting token. Kimmel seized on that, mocking the imbalance in symbolic value and the transactional weirdness of the whole encounter.
But he didn’t stop at roasting the bizarre ego moment. Kimmel pivoted to a satirical deal offer to Trump: he laid out several of his own* awards — from a 1999 Emmy to a tongue‑in‑cheek “White Person of the Year” plaque — and joked that he’d personally deliver them to the Oval Office “in exchange for” policy action, specifically getting ICE out of Minneapolis.
The bit was a strategic satire with a point: if Trump loves trophies so much, maybe they can be used as leverage rather than just props for self‑gratification. It’s a comic framing that undercuts Trump’s quest for validation and draws a laugh and a critique at the same time.
The segment tapped into a broader late‑night trend of targeting Trump’s peculiar relationship with praise and awards — both what he seeks and what he gets handed, willingly or otherwise.
Watch the full segment below:
