“We wanna see all the horrors the administration is defending you from,” Kimmel said.
Hey, Portland. Jimmy Kimmel wants to see your “hellhole.”
During his opening monologue for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Wednesday evening, the host and comedian highlighted President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy federal troops to Portland and other cities where residents have been protesting against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Trump and his buddies in the right-wing media are talking about Portland like its a scene from ‘The Last of Us’, when the reality is this is what these troops are being called in to stop,” Kimmel said, shortly before the late-night show displayed footage of demonstrators dancing to Farruko’s “Pepas” and Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” outside of the ICE facility.
A few protesters were also seen wearing inflatable animal costumes.
“If you live in Portland, Chicago, Memphis, D.C. — any of the cities where Trump is sending in the National Guard to protect you from squirrels, I don’t know — we want to see it,” Kimmel said before directing viewers to share videos of their “war-torn” communities while using the hashtag #ShowMeYourHellhole.
“We wanna see all the horrors the administration is defending you from,” he added.
Trump referred to Portland as a “burning hellhole” as recently as Monday, when he told reporters he was considering enforcing the Insurrection Act against the city. In just the past several weeks, he has also compared living in Portland to “living in hell” and described the city as “war-ravaged” and “like World War II.”
Kimmel’s call for “hellhole” footage occurred on the heels of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to Portland. She has since added on to the president’s accusations against the city, threatening to “double down” on enforcement by buying additional federal buildings in the area.
Mayor Keith Wilson has pushed back against the president’s claims several times, with one of his lengthier statements published in TIME just last week. But in a more recent interview with KOIN 6 on Thursday, he argued that federal officials are “trying to inflame the narrative.”
“We’ve struggled, there’s no doubt, but we can’t live in the past,” Wilson said. “I think the administration is living in the past. This is about today and moving forward.”
