Jimmy Kimmel pokes fun at Trump after escalator incident

Jimmy Kimmel is continuing to poke fun at US President Donald Trump.

The recent gag comes in response to Trump’s Sept. 23 visit to the United Nations headquarters, where the escalator carrying him and First Lady Melania Trump suddenly stopped. The pair had to walk the rest of the way.

Trump later commented on the malfunction in his speech, calling it “a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”

Kimmel took it as an opportunity to troll Trump, who previously publicly celebrated suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Taking to Instagram on Friday, the late-night show host posted a photo of sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez, 54, smiling and waving while riding an escalator with his luggage. The caption read: “Headed to Brooklyn! Escalator is working great!”

Kimmel’s post also follows a string of recent Trump jabs during his show’s return week.

“You know, a lot of people watched our show last night,” Kimmel said in his Sept 24 monologue. “I did hear from one very special friend, moments after we taped our show last night, the mad red hatter wrote, ‘I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,'” Kimmel said, reading directly from Trump’s Truth Social post.

Kimmel then replied, “You can’t believe they gave me my job back? I can’t believe they gave you your job back! We’re even.”

The next night, Kimmel thanked Trump for the ratings boost that came with the show suspension controversy.

“This has been a tumultuous week,” Kimmel said. “On Tuesday, we had our second-highest rated show in almost 23 years on the air. Our monologue from Tuesday night has more than 21 million views just on YouTube alone.”

He added with a wink: “And I want to say, we couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. President. Thank you very much.”

Kimmel went on to joke that, after seeing his numbers, other shows might start taking aim at Trump too.