As renewed attention circles the Epstein files, Jimmy Kimmel suggested this week that Donald Trump’s response has followed a familiar pattern. In a monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late-night host argued that the president has leaned into legal threats, public feuds, and escalating demands, while claiming ignorance about how much money his family is making. He then invented a diagnosis for the president’s apparent memory lapses.
Kimmel described the Epstein documents as the kind of story Trump would prefer to see fade quietly. Instead, he said, the administration has flooded the news cycle with lawsuits and confrontations, leaving little room for sustained focus on any single issue.
Among the examples cited was Trump’s decision to sue the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion, an agency that falls under his own administration. Kimmel noted that Trump wants to negotiate a settlement himself. He also pointed to Trump’s escalating legal fight with Harvard University for misconduct. Kimmel said Trump initially demanded $200 million from the school before increasing the figure to $1 billion.
Scamnesia.
Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue:https://t.co/wAYjH6gZnp
— LibertyIsStillALady (@still_liberty) February 4, 2026
Kimmel talked about the scale and frequency of the numbers themselves, joking about how quickly they pile up — billions demanded here, billions there — often announced via social media posts that blur the line between legal threat and political messaging. Trump is always in top form when it comes to these things. But the core of Kimmel’s critique landed elsewhere, per The Daily Beast.
The talk show host then highlighted a $500 million investment made days before Trump’s inauguration by a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family into a Trump family cryptocurrency venture known as World Liberty Financial. Months later, the Trump administration approved the sale of advanced American-made artificial intelligence chips to Abu Dhabi, technology the previous administration had declined to provide over national security concerns.
When asked about the investment, Trump said he was unaware of the details and described the venture as being handled by his sons and other family members. Kimmel replayed the exchange, contrasting Trump’s claimed lack of knowledge with his frequent assertions that he knows more than experts on nearly every subject.
Trump reversed decades of national security objections to selling advanced AI chips to UAE. National security experts were alarmed.
But there was a secret. Before the deal, UAE had sent $187M to the Trumps and $31M to the Witkoffs in secret payments.
Mind blowing corruption. pic.twitter.com/oANDPTzb6x
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 1, 2026
“The man who knows more than the experts about every subject under the sun doesn’t know about this,” Kimmel said, before joking that the selective memory loss deserved a name — “scamnesia.”
The monologue framed the moment as part of a broader pattern. Kimmel pointed to Trump’s repeated insistence that he is unfamiliar with the financial details of his family’s ventures, even as public reporting documents billions in transactions and investments connected to his second term.
Kimmel also linked that selective memory to Trump’s responses when asked about the Epstein files, where the president has repeatedly brushed off questions or denied knowledge. The approach, Kimmel suggested, is consistent — deny awareness, shift attention, escalate elsewhere.
BREAKING: Jimmy Kimmel and Kamala Harris just shared a laugh about the irony of Donald Trump’s cognitive decline after years of making fun of President Biden. This is amazing. pic.twitter.com/tOveJGLm2c
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) December 18, 2025
Trump, for his part, has continued to boast about acing multiple cognitive tests and has dismissed questions about his memory or mental fitness. In the past, he has described receiving perfect scores and challenged political opponents to take the same exams.
By the end of the monologue, the lawsuits, investments, and memory lapses formed a single conclusion about the 47th president. Kimmel did not argue that Trump had forgotten everything — only that the things he forgets tend to involve money, accountability, and questions he would rather not answer.
