Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel mocked Vice President Pence after he was caught on hot mic apparently joking about carrying empty boxes while delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) to a Virginia nursing home on Thursday.
“Mike Pence pretending to carry empty boxes of PPEs into a hospital is the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he’s doing: A big box of nothing delivering another box of nothing,” Kimmel said during the monologue on his show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night.
He played a video clip of Pence delivering boxes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Woodbine Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Since it was going so well, and also because he didn’t realize he had a mic on, Magic Mike decided to keep it going,” Kimmel said, introducing the video.
In it, Pence is told boxes in a van are empty. Pence, caught at low volume in the video, responds: “Well can I carry the empty ones? Just for the cameras?”
In the full video taken by C-Span, Pence carries several boxes from a van to the home before being told the rest of the boxes in the van are empty. Pence does not actually carry any of the empty boxes.
Kimmel later apologized for the missing context, but continued to call the PPE delivery a “staged publicity stunt.”
“it would appear that @vp was joking about carrying empty boxes for a staged publicity stunt. The full video reveals that he was carrying full boxes for a staged publicity stunt. My apologies. I know how dearly this administration values truth,” Kimmel tweeted.
The Kimmel clip was shared on Twitter by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), among other Pence critics.
“As @jimmykimmel said, Mike Pence pretending to help during a crisis is the perfect metaphor for the failures of this administration in handling this pandemic,” Rush tweeted.
The Hill has reached out to the vice president’s office for comment.
President Trump earlier this week referred to Kimmel as “wacko ‘last placer’ Jimmy Kimmel” in a tweet.
“I think what he meant to tweet was, ‘I am completely devastated by the loss of life caused by this virus,'” Kimmel responded on his show Thursday night.
-Updated 1:20 p.m.