Trump Throws a Tantrum Over His Ballroom, Feud with Pope Continues & Roadkill Enthusiast RFK Jr
What this video covers
This is the opening monologue from ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, dated April 17, 2026, in which Kimmel runs through the day’s political news with a comedic slant. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears as one of several targets in the monologue, alongside President Trump’s Las Vegas trip, a feud with a federal judge over ballroom construction, and an ongoing public spat with the Pope.
Kimmel’s Kennedy material centers on a resurfaced anecdote about roadkill — joking that Kennedy once “carved the penis off of a dead raccoon to ‘study it later’” — and notes that TMZ caught up with the health secretary that day. The bit draws on a new book, RFK Jr.: The Fallen Rise, said to be based largely on Kennedy’s personal diaries; Kimmel reads the entry aloud: “I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a roadkilled raccoon thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be.” When TMZ asked Kennedy where the raccoon’s penis is now, he replied, “Uh, it’s in heaven now.” He also mentions Kennedy’s appearance before the House Ways and Means Committee to defend planned budget cuts to HHS.
Kimmel plays two committee moments against Kennedy: his claim that the average American has “a teaspoon full of microplastics in his brain” — which Kimmel mocks as scientifically unsupported — and an exchange in which Kennedy denies ever saying “every black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall,” only for Kimmel to play the recording showing he said it. The segment ends with a comedy bit in which Kimmel interviews a fictional “RFK Junior Jr.” about his new podcast — riffing on a real announcement Kimmel flags earlier: Kennedy had just launched “The Secretary Kennedy” podcast, making him, in Kimmel’s telling, “the first Secretary of Health to launch a podcast.”
Key points
- Kimmel frames the monologue around a chaotic news day: Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” event in Las Vegas, four separate attacks on a federal judge who paused ballroom construction, the Triumphal Arch project, and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on its fourth day.
- The Kennedy jokes lean on his long-documented roadkill stories — including the newly surfaced diary entry about the I-684 raccoon, which Kimmel reads verbatim — exaggerated for comic effect.
- Asked by TMZ where the raccoon’s penis is now, Kennedy answered, “Uh, it’s in heaven now” — the monologue’s single real Kennedy clip of the night.
- Kimmel notes Kennedy appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee that week to defend planned HHS budget cuts, folding a real policy event into the comedy.
- Kimmel catches Kennedy denying he said “every black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall,” then plays the recording proving he did — presented as the monologue’s sharpest hit on Kennedy’s credibility.
- The closing “RFK Junior Jr.” interview is a scripted sketch riffing on Kennedy’s real podcast launch; the guest is fictional, the podcast announcement was not.
- The segment reflects how Kennedy, as a sitting cabinet secretary, had become a regular fixture of late-night monologues by spring 2026.