George Clooney has come to Jimmy Kimmel’s defense over jokes made at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, while also criticizing the kind of political hostility he says helped bring the evening to an abrupt end.
Speaking Monday night, the Ocean’s 11 actor addressed the public reaction following the latest attempt on President Trump’s life, an incident tied to the high-profile annual gathering of the White House press corps.
Appearing at the 51st Chaplin Award Gala, Clooney argued that Kimmel’s job is to push boundaries with comedy and suggested the remarks being debated weren’t intended as a literal call to violence.
“Jimmy’s a comedian, and I would argue that Karoline Leavitt didn’t mean shots should be fired.
“She was making a joke. Fair enough. You look at that side and go, ’Well, jokes are jokes.’ But the rhetoric is a little dangerous. And we’ve seen it a lot lately.”
Clooney went on to say the temperature of political discourse needs to be lowered, warning that branding opponents as enemies of the nation can encourage dangerous thinking and escalate already tense divisions.
“When one side is calling anyone they disagree with traitors to the country, which is a charge that’s punishable by death, just because they don’t agree with someone, I think the rhetoric is a little too heated.”