Jimmy Kimmel Exposes Shameless Opportunist J.D. Vance

On Wednesday night, Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on a “funny scenario” developing in Ohio’s GOP Senate race, where rabid Trump supporter (and guy who likes palling around with QAnon nutjobs) Josh Mandel is running against J.D. Vance, a former critic of Trump’s who wrote a book that was adapted into one of the worst movies in recent memory.

Mandel received the endorsement of Club for Growth, a powerful conservative organization (with its own Super PAC) that sounds an awful lot like a hair-growth product and was very critical of Trump during the 2016 election—and endorsed Ted Cruz—before supporting his re-election bid in 2020. Club for Growth has been running attack ads against Vance citing his anti-Trump statements, including: “I’m a Never Trump guy—I’ve never liked him,” “I find him reprehensible,” “an idiot,” and “noxious.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Right? Is that wrong?” cracked Kimmel, adding, “Then, J.D. smelled which way the wind was blowing off the porta-potty that is today’s Republican Party and he changed his tune. All of a sudden, he decided not only isn’t Trump ‘noxious’ and ‘reprehensible,’ he’s now the greatest president of his lifetime and J.D.’s previous opinions, he says, were stupid.”

Yes, Vance—who’s cosplaying as a populist while accepting millions in backing from right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel—has since reversed course and jumped on the Trump Train, addressing his anti-Trump statements during a recent Ohio GOP Senate debate by saying, “All of us say stupid things, and I happen to say stupid things very publicly.”

“Which is really a great qualification for a future senator. ‘Vote for me—I say stupid things very publicly,’” joked Kimmel.

“But guess what? It worked,” he continued “Trump actually endorsed J.D., the guy who called him an idiot, which leads the Club for Growth now in the hilarious position of being mad at Trump for endorsing a candidate that isn’t sufficiently pro-Trump. It’s an anti-Mexican standoff.”

With that, he threw to a recent ad Club for Growth took out expressing confusion that Trump endorsed Vance despite his anti-Trump statements. Winners all around.