Kimmel on Matt Gaetz: ‘What’s the opposite of a criminal mastermind?’

Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel dove into the latest in the sex scandal that has engulfed the Florida congressman and Trump fanboy Matt Gaetz, who is under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking and a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

“Yesterday we learned that Gaetz was involved in more wild house parties than Kid ’n Play in the 90s,” Kimmel said in Thursday’s monologue, citing a CNN report about house parties in Orlando in which Gaetz and his friend, Joel Greenberg, took drugs and paid for sex with money and gifts.

Many of those payments were made over the app Venmo, which defaults to public settings. “Greenberg is now cooperating with authorities, which is bad for Matt Gaetz, presumably as a result of more than 150 payments made to dozens of young women,” Kimmel explained. “At least 16 of those payments were made to a woman who later dated Matt Gaetz, and the notes on these – you know how you put the notes on Venmo? – they’re ridiculous.”

Three payments for $500, $500, and $250 were labeled “ice-cream” and five were labeled “salad”. “One of those ‘salads’ cost more than $1,000 – I guess they added avocado,” Kimmel joked.

Two of the transactions were called “stuff” and “other stuff”.

“It’s bad enough that Matt Gaetz is implicated in doing stuff. But other stuff? That’s outrageous,” Kimmel quipped.

“We know about all this because stupid Joel Greenberg made his Venmo transactions public – as did Matt Gaetz,” Kimmel said. “They didn’t check the privacy box. What’s the opposite of a criminal mastermind?”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers also took a deep dive into the Matt Gaetz sex scandal, including a report which revealed federal investigators seized Gaetz’s iPhone in December. “Chances are pretty high that if you’ve broken the law there’s evidence of it on your phone,” said Meyers.

As for the public Venmo payments, “It used to be when politicians broke the law they stuffed an envelope full of hundred dollar bills and met their contact in a parking garage,” Meyers said. “Now they just Venmo a buddy with an emoji of an envelope stuffed with cash.”

Gaetz has denied all allegations and got into a tiff with a reporter this week who pressed him for comments as he hurried down the steps of the Capitol into a tinted-window car.

“I’d say along with getting your phone seized, being chased down a flight of stairs by a crowd of reporters and getting hustled into the backseat of a waiting car isn’t a sign that things are going great,” Meyers said. “That’s classic corrupt politicians stuff.”

Trevor Noah

And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah responded to a week of outrage over the horrifying police killing of Daunte Wright in Minnesota, during the trial of officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd – or, as Noah called it, “another week in America” – with a discussion about black people’s justified fear of being pulled over while driving.

“You might be thinking, ‘Well, if you’re so scared of being pulled over, then don’t do anything wrong.’ Well, let’s be honest, people: America’s laws always give the police an excuse to pull someone over,” Noah said, imitating police: “Oh, I think you were going too fast. I think you were going too slow! Your seatbelt, your taillight, your license plate, your registration, not signaling, tinted windows. And nothing is more suspicious than someone breaking zero rules in their car.

“It’s not just traffic stops. Every encounter between a police officer and a black person is fraught with danger,” he added, and brought up “the talk” had by many black families, in which parents explain to their children how to act during an inevitable encounter with law enforcement.

“Police violence is such a threat that somehow the most uncomfortable talk you have to have with your kids is the one where you don’t use the word semen,” Noah said. “And look, I know that all parents talk to their kids about how to stay safe, but for black people, it’s specifically about staying safe from the police – the people whose job is supposedly to keep them safe.”

Because police are known to respond to children as young as eight years old as a threat – see, horrifyingly, the body-cam footage released this week of Chicago police fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo as he raised his hands – many black parents have this talk while their kids are very young. “If you think about it, black people have more education around policing than actual police,” Noah said. “Like, no cop starts training at eight years old.

“The talk still hasn’t been able to prevent police violence against black people,” he concluded. “So maybe it’s not black people who need a talk about how to act around the police. Maybe, just maybe, police need a talk about how to act around black people.”