Jimmy Kimmel: ‘I was wrong’ to share deceptive Pence video

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel said late Monday that he was “wrong” to share a deceptive video of Vice President Pence delivering medical supplies to an elder care facility, with the late-night host adding that “apologizing to the Trump administration for spreading untruth is like apologizing to Barry Bonds for using steroids.”

Kimmel last week shared a video showing Pence delivering protective gear to a Virginia hospital. During part of it, Pence is told that some of the boxes are empty, and he jokes to staffers about whether he should carry those into the hospital. While the only boxes Pence carried are full of protective gear, the video suggests he was bringing in empty ones.

“How anyone can tell when Mike Pence is joking, I don’t know,” Kimmel, a staunch critic of President Trump, said Monday night.

“I didn’t know because I’d only watched part of the video. Turns out there were 29 minutes of this on C-SPAN that apparently indicate he was joking about carrying the empty boxes for the cameras, which again, I didn’t know because I do not have the mental endurance it requires to watch Mike Pence deliver boxes for 29 minutes on C-SPAN,” he said.

“But I should have watched the whole thing, I guess. Bottom line is, I was wrong,” the 52-year-old continued. “Apologizing to the Trump administration for spreading untruth is like apologizing to Barry Bonds for using steroids. It’s hard.”

“But the outrage from the MAGA hats, the outpouring of venom, was disgusting,” he said. “Stupid too, but mostly disgusting.”

“It was not a doctored video, by the way, we didn’t do anything to it,” Kimmel contended.

By his vice majesty’s request, my official on-air apology to the truth-loving, profoundly-principled @VP Mike Pence… #JimmyKimmelLiveFromHisHouse #StayHome pic.twitter.com/8SWGW8aLku

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 12, 2020

Kimmel shared the 40-second clip originally posted by Democratic political strategist Matt McDermott last Thursday.

“A big box of nothing, delivering another box of nothing,” Kimmel wrote on Twitter to his 11.7 million followers.

Kimmel later deleted the tweet and apologized for mischaracterizing Pence’s actions, while still taking a shot at the Trump administration by saying, “I know how dearly this administration values truth.”

The Washington Post’s fact-checker weighed in on Kimmel in a report published Friday.

“Kimmel is a comedian, but he still should be careful about perpetuating a narrative that the media peddles ‘fake news.’ This was certainly a phony tale, and it can undercut accurate and dogged reporting by real reporters,” Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote.

“This is a clear case of manipulated video, according to our guide. It is an example of ‘deceptive editing-omission,'” he added.

Kessler said that because Kimmel apologized and deleted the tweet, he avoided being awarded four Pinocchios.

The Post’s fact-checker applies four Pinocchios for what the column considers the most egregious statements.