Jimmy Kimmel Rips Into Marco Rubio’s ‘Incredibly Stupid’ Excuse for Skipping SOTU

Jimmy Kimmel did not seem overly enthused about President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address Tuesday night, calling it a “tough speech” and joking that he “probably could’ve just saved himself some time and just tweeted that the State of the Union is ‘malarkey AF.’”

“The state of our union is about as strong as Kim and Kanye right now,” the late-night host added, noting that “not every lawmaker showed up to watch the speech, which is not the usual.”

“One of those who opted out tonight was Florida Senator Marco Rubio,” Kimmel continued, explaining that the Republican lawmaker skipped the speech because he didn’t want to take the required COVID test.

“I don’t have time to go take a COVID test today,” Rubio complained earlier in the day. “I only take a test if I’m sick.”

“Which, since you can have and spread COVID without any symptoms, is an incredibly stupid thing to say,” Kimmel said in response. “But, in fairness, that is what Marco Rubio does. He is very on-brand. You know why he won’t do it, right? You know why he won’t take it? Because if they swab his nose, it would probably test positive for Donald Trump’s butt.”

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Speaking of the former president, Kimmel expressed disbelief at a poll that found 62 percent of Americans believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. “As far as this fairy tale about him being tough on Putin, remember when our U.S. intelligence informed our president that Russia did everything they could to disrupt our election?” he asked. “And then when given the choice to side with Putin or our own FBI and CIA, guess who he picked?”

“There’s your tough guy on Russia,” Kimmel said after playing a clip of Trump’s infamous Helsinki summit press conference. “What happened there is Mr. Tough Guy looked into Putin’s eyes and soaked his Depends.”

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