PoliticsJimmy Kimmel Slams 'Disturbing Moment' Donald Trump Tried to Convince ABC Reporter That Wrongly Deported Man Has MS-13 Tattoo
The Trump administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia because they believed he was part of the MS-13 gang.
May 1 2025, Published 2:39 p.m. ET
Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue during Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday, April 30, caused the audience to erupt with laughter as he slammed President Donald Trump for his interview with ABC News the day before.
During the sit-down with reporter Terry Moran, Trump referenced a photo of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent to an El Salvador mega-prison in March.
Garcia, who resided in Maryland, was forced to the Salvadoran detention center by the Trump administration after they believed he was part of MS-13, an international criminal gang.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March.
As Kimmel spoke about the interview during his late-night show, he called Trump’s comments about Garcia “the most disturbing moment yet” of the president’s first 100 days in office.
“Trump says crazy stuff every day. But most of the time, you know he’s full of it,” the comedian stated. “He’s bragging or he’s lying or whatever; he’s just throwing crap onto his vision board. But this interview he did last night with Terry Moran from ABC News. You have to see that it went off the rails when Moran brought up the subject of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”
Jimmy Kimmel said Donald Trump's ABC News interview was the 'most disturbing moment yet' of his first 100 days in office.
He continued, “Trump is convinced that he is a member of the gang MS-13. And the evidence that he’s so convinced by is this clearly doctored photo in which someone, possibly a 5-year-old, put MS-13 on his knuckles.”
Kimmel then cut to the photo in question, where Garcia had “MS-13” photoshopped over his knuckles. “Now, to everyone else, this looks like it was created in Microsoft Paint on a Tandy 1000. But to Donald Trump, this is irrefutable evidence,” he said.
Donald Trump told Terry Moran, 'I never heard of you,' during their interview.
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The late-night host continued as he showed the audience a video of Trump arguing with Moran during the interview. “That was photoshopped? Terry, you can’t do that,” Trump told Moran. “Hey, they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know you’re doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you.”
Trump then asked the reporter, “You want me to show you the picture?”
The president continued, “He had MS as clear as you could be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe the news… Terry, he’s got MS-13 on his knuckles, OK? You do such a disservice.”
The late-night host noted that the president could have photoshopped the image himself.
As Kimmel’s opening segment went on, he made fun of Trump for likely photoshopping the image himself. “This couldn’t look worse if Trump had written it in with a Sharpie himself,” he quipped.
“Not to mention, this zoom-in on a photo of Abrego Garcia they took a couple of weeks ago at the prison in El Salvador; you can see there is no MS or 13 anywhere on his hand,” Kimmel noted as a new photo of Garcia in prison appeared on the screen.
Jimmy Kimmel joked that Donald Trump is 'falling for Facebook memes.'
“Our president is falling for Facebook memes, not even good Facebook memes,” the comedian joked. “He’s like your aunt who texts you a picture of a minion and asks, ‘Is this person real?’ Donald Trump is never wrong; no matter how hard Moran tried to move on from this, he would not let it go.”
Despite Garcia’s attorneys reportedly saying their client escaped political violence in El Salvador in 2011 and is not an MS-13 gang member, Garcia remains in custody.
