Jimmy Kimmel spent Thursday night trying to explain trade deficits to an 80-year-old billionaire.
It didn't go well for Kimmel.
And Donald Trump posted a short message after the Fed raised rates – "Our country is booming" – but Kimmel still managed to get the rebuttal wrong.
What Actually Happened at the Fed
Trump spent years fighting Jerome Powell because he wouldn't cut rates fast enough.
He replaced Powell with Kevin Warsh – sworn in on May 22nd, Trump's handpicked chairman.
This week, Warsh raised interest rates for the first time since 2023.
Kimmel thought this was a gotcha.
"Remember how Trump spent the past year-and-a-half trying to fire the chairman of the Fed because he wouldn't lower interest rates? Well, he was finally able to get his own guy in there and yesterday the new guy, his guy, raised the interest rates,” Kimmel said. "Out of all the things that makes Trump nuts, nothing makes him madder than when somebody he hires actually does his job.”
Trump responded to the hike by posting, 'Our country is booming.'"
https://twitter.com/alexchristy17/status/2100605405806166251?s=20
He also said he has "a lot of respect" for Warsh and that Warsh will "do what he has to do."
That's it.
Compare that to 2018, when Trump told reporters the Fed "has gone crazy" after Powell raised rates.
Trump understood something Kimmel's writers apparently didn't: inflation is real, energy prices are elevated because of the Iran situation, and Warsh is doing his job in a genuinely difficult environment.
Torching your own Fed chair four months into his tenure would be insane.
Trump didn't do it.
Kimmel made a diaper joke instead.
The Economics Lesson Kimmel Flunked
Kimmel then went after Trump for not understanding trade deficits.
Trump had written that a trade deficit is "nothing more than a fancy word for loss."
“Our country is booming with new investment,” Trump wrote. “If we stopped trading with every country that we have a deficit with, which is most of them, we would make at least $1.5 trillion a year. The word deficit is nothing more than a fancy word for loss.”
Kimmel said that's wrong.
He said a deficit just means we buy more from a country than they buy from us.
Fine.
https://twitter.com/latenightercom/status/2100068271198462434?s=20
Then Kimmel explained why America runs a deficit with Canada: mostly because Canada has a tenth of our population and, as he put it, "we're fat."
“All a deficit means is we buy more stuff from a country like Canada than they buy from us,” he said. “Mostly because Canada has about a tenth of our population.”
That's not economics.
That's a punchline dressed up as a correction.
Trade balances are driven by currency exchange rates, comparative advantage, and tariff structures – not waistlines.
Kimmel corrected the president's economics while getting the economics wrong on television in front of 1.4 million people.
The Audience That Keeps Shrinking
The average Jimmy Kimmel Live! episode draws 1.4 million viewers on a normal week.
When Trump first took office in 2017, it drew 2.5 million.
Those missing million people didn't stop watching Trump.
They stopped watching Kimmel.
https://twitter.com/paidprotestr/status/2100704960031965263?s=20
And if his version of economic analysis is "we're fat" and his version of political commentary is a diaper bit, you can see why.
Trump is managing a Federal Reserve chair navigating a rate hike in a genuine inflationary environment, a hot war in the Middle East pushing energy prices higher, and a global trade realignment that rivals anything since Bretton Woods.
He handled the Fed news in five words and let Warsh run the central bank.
Kimmel spent ten minutes correcting him.
And still got it wrong.
Sources:
- Scarlett O'Toole, "Jimmy Kimmel warns Donald Trump is 'confusing our country with his diaper,'" The Mirror, September 18, 2026.
- Reuters, "Fed begins Warsh era by keeping rates on hold, sees one hike later this year," The Daily Record, June 17, 2026.
- Associated Press, "Trump says Fed Chair Warsh will 'do what he has to do' on possible rate hikes," PBS NewsHour, August 31, 2026.
- "September Fed Meeting: Live Updates and Commentary," Kiplinger, September 2026.
- Staff, "Jimmy Kimmel Live Returns to Largest Audience in 10+ Years," LateNighter, September 24, 2025.
- Fox Business, "Trump: Fed 'has gone crazy' as it raises interest rates," October 2018.