Jimmy Kimmel Fires Back at Critics Calling Him a Health Care ‘Puppet’

In the wake of Republican backlash over his condemnation of the Graham-Cassidy bill, Jimmy Kimmel has called out critics of his participation in the national health care debate. During Monday’s episode of Live!, the late night host hit back at pundits who suggested that his push against the repeal of Obamacare indicates he is a puppet for the Democratic party.

“It would be easy for me to dismiss this as some kind of right-wing hysteria, but he does have a point,” Kimmel said after airing a Fox News clip in which contributor Pete Hegseth argued he was in bed with the Democrats. “I’d like to make a confession tonight. I need to come clean. Here’s what happened. So my wife and I were worried about health care — we didn’t like what the Republicans were doing. So we decided to have a baby with congenital heart defects. And then once we had that going for us, I went on TV, I spoke out and we may have stopped Cassidy-Graham. I still can’t believe we pulled it off but we did. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Watch the full video above.