Kimmel Gets Blindsided By Scathing Shapiro Response After Picking Fight With The GOP
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro sarcastically described ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel as a “classy guy” for a tweet likening Republicans’ acceptance of campaign support from the National Rifle Association to a willingness to do the same from ISIS.
Kimmel retweeted a post over the weekend, which read, “It would be hilarious if ISIS offered the GOP a ton of money cuz there’s no way they wouldn’t take it and they’d have to start being like ‘ISIS is what makes this country great.'”
The tweet drew a response from Shapiro on Sunday: “What a classy guy that @jimmykimmel is. BTW, Jimmy, would you like me to remind you who called ISIS the jayvee squad while they built a terror state? And which party handed billions to the Iranian terror state?”
Former President Barack Obama characterized ISIS as the “jayvee team” in an interview with The New Yorker in January 2014, as the terrorist group was establishing a foothold in Iraq and Syria.
Additionally, his administration paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash as a settlement of an arbitration claim the Islamic Republic had against the United States. Further, it released at least $50 billion in frozen assets being held by United States’ financial institutions.
The night of the Feb. 14 Florida high school shooting, Kimmel accused President Donald Trump of doing “worse than nothing” in response to mass shootings in the country.
“Don’t you dare let anyone say it’s too soon to be talking about it, because you said it after Vegas; you said it after Sandy Hook; you say that after every one of these eight now-fatal school shootings we had in this country this year,” Kimmel said.
“Children are being murdered,” the host continued with emotion in his voice. “We still haven’t even talked about it. You still haven’t done anything about it. You’ve literally done nothing. Actually, you’ve done worse than nothing.”
Kimmel then took members of Congress to task for taking money from the NRA.
“A number of other lawmakers who won’t do anything about this because the N.R.A. has their balls in a money clip also sent their thoughts and their prayers today, which is good,” he said. “They should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country.”
The NRA has been the focal point for many on the left in response to shooting, and some major corporations have chosen to break ties with the organization.
As reported by The Western Journal, NRA executive vice president Wayne La Pierre voiced his support at CPAC last week for strengthening the nation’s background check system, denying firearms to mentally ill individuals, and improving security at schools as important steps that should be taken to address mass shootings.
On Monday, the NRA retweeted an interview Shapiro gave to The Daily Signal at CPAC in which he explained what should happen following Parkland.
Shapiro called for “dramatically heightening school security” as well as a gun violence temporary restraining order, like that proposed by the National Review’s David French.
Shapiro explained the idea of the restraining order is that people close to a potentially dangerous individual can petition a court to have that person’s right to bear arms removed for a certain limited period of time. French noted the length is usually 21 days. The order would automatically lift after that time unless the court is presented with further evidence confirming the danger.
Trump has offered his support for strengthening school security, including arming certain qualified teachers and school officials, strengthening background checks, and putting a system in place that keeps the mentally ill from obtaining weapons.
In a meeting with the National Association of Governors at the White House on Monday, the president said: “We continue to mourn the loss of so many precious young lives. These are incredible people. I visited a lot of them. But we’ll turn our grief into action.”
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