It took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel two words to answer President Donald Trump’s explanation for the Republican losses, and the audience did the rest.

Kimmel, 58, opened the Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC by taking aim at the president’s account of the midterms, a day after Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the Nov. 3 elections. The show airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET.

“And, in the face of defeat, he is doing what he does best, blaming everyone other than him,” Kimmel said. “He absolved himself of all responsibility. He wrote, ‘I wasn’t on the ballot. And if I was, we would have won in a landslide.’ Oh, shut up. Just shut up, please.”

The studio audience erupted into cheers, whistles and applause.

“I mean, give us a break for one day and shut that ridiculous mouth. You are such a spoiled child. Did you ever learn anything about manners or sportsmanship or simple common decency? Nothing is ever your fault,” he said.

From South Carolina to the Ohio Seat

Republicans lost nearly everywhere outside the deepest red territory, Kimmel said, dismissing the president’s not-on-the-ballot theory as “such crap.” Then he read the losses back to him, one handpicked candidate at a time.

Trump picked Darline Graham to run in South Carolina. He backed Ken Paxton in Texas. He went all in on Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio. Kimmel also said Trump ran Thom Tillis out of the Senate, and told the president that Republicans would still hold the Ohio Senate seat they lost on Nov. 3 had he not chosen Vice President JD Vance as his running mate.

“You were on the ballot. You’re like dog hair. You’re on everything,” Kimmel said.

He told Trump he had infected every nook and cranny of American life and divided the country like no one before him. The one moment of unity, Kimmel said, came on Nov. 3, when voters banded together to get rid of him. The audience burst into noise and clapping again.

A Blue Tsunami and a Warning

The night before, on the Nov. 3 episode, Kimmel called the result a blue tsunami and joked that the Red Wedding had begun, a nod to the massacre scene in “Game of Thrones.” Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats. Several states, including Texas and Kansas, went blue for the first time in decades.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is set to lose his post, with Democrat Hakeem Jeffries expected to replace him. Kimmel’s guests that night were “Pod Save America” hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, and Favreau called the outcome the beginning of the end of the Trump era. The cheers that followed did not settle Kimmel’s own nerves. He said he has studied the president long enough to doubt he will go away gently, and that he worries Trump will get “even crazier.”

Nappy Gilmore and a Call to Quit

Kimmel’s prescription for the 80-year-old president was resignation. He used the nickname “Nappy Gilmore,” told Trump to quit already and said nobody wants him in the job — not even Trump himself. As an exit plan, he quipped that the president could take a billion dollars’ worth of crypto and buy an island, suggesting Epstein’s Island.

Vance taking the oath in Trump’s place does not worry him, Kimmel said. A man who went from calling Trump the American Hitler to calling him the greatest president of his generation can flip back, he said, describing the vice president as a very good flipper with no spine.

The lesson he wanted viewers to take from the election cycle was about loyalty. Trump holds no allegiance to anyone or anything, Kimmel said, calling him a Democrat who was never really a Democrat and then a Republican who isn’t a Republican.

“The only party he leads is the slumber party, and he’s the only person in it,” Kimmel said.