Jimmy Kimmel breaks down on TV while talking about Texas school shooting

On Wednesday’s show, Jimmy Kimmel tearfully addressed the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 21 people, mostly children, at Robb Elementary School.

“Here we are again on another day of mourning in this country,” Kimmel said. “Once again we grieve for the little boys and girls whose lives have been ended and the families that have been destroyed.”

He then turned his attention to “leaders on the right,” described Fox News as unwilling to address gun control laws, and shared how popular “common sense gun laws” are.

“You know, most Americans support keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children — the majority of us do, Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “The reason they call them common sense gun laws (is) because that’s what they are, common sense.”

He said a majority of Americans want background checks prior to gun purchases (84% in favor, according to a 2021 poll) and notes that the House passed a bipartisan bill on gun control that sits languishing in the Senate.

“They won’t pass it because our cowardly leaders just aren’t listening to us,” he said. “They’re listening to those people who write them checks, who keep them in power because that’s the way that politics work. That’s the idea we settle on. It’s what we tell ourselves. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Kimmel said that Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who reacted passionately to the mass shooting and urged more action at a post-game press conference, “shows more leadership” than many politicians. Kimmel rebuffed the idea that armed guards at schools could prevent mass shootings.

“If your solution to children being massacred is armed guards you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on,” he said. “They had armed guards. There were police officers armed on the scenes — and these murders still happen.”

Related: Bystanders outside Texas school shooting say they urged armed police to go insideKimmel appealed to lawmakers’ humanity and urged them to admit when they’re wrong.

“I don’t believe Ted Cruz doesn’t care about children … He’s a father. I bet he went to bed sick to his stomach last night. It’s easy to call someone a monster, but he’s not a monster. He’s a human being,” he said. “Here’s the thing I would like to say to Ted Cruz, the human being, Governor Abbott, everyone. It’s OK to make a mistake. In fact, it’s not just OK. It’s necessary to admit you made a mistake when your mistake is killing the children in your state.”

Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg, 14, who died in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in 2018, shared the video on social media, thanking the late night host and saying, “I love you.” Kimmel responded:

“I love you too Fred. You honor Jaime with your work and your passion every day. You are the one who deserves thanks.”

Some viewers in North Texas watching WFAA noticed that the broadcast cut out during Kimmel’s monologue. The station apologized “for technical difficulties” and shared the entire monologue and explanation of the broadcast problem online and on social media.

Kimmel said he believes the mistake was unintentional.

Kimmel encouraged viewers to “be loud and stay loud and not stop until we fix this” and urged them to vote out politicians who do not support protecting children with common sense gun laws.

“We demand action. We don’t get it. They wait it out. We go back to our lives that we should rightfully be able to go back to, but you know who doesn’t forget it?” he said. “The parents of the children at Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and now Robb Elementary School, they won’t forget it.”

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