
Inside the JKL! offices, the atmosphere was surprisingly calm. Jimmy Kimmel was casually walking around in socks, snacking on frozen raspberries, and jokingly apologizing that the afternoon would be dull – spent watching him write his monologue. Though the show isn’t live anymore, taping was delayed an hour to give the team extra preparation time. Kimmel and writers Josh Halloway, Greg Martin, and Nick DiLorenzo were quietly typing into a shared Google document, occasionally stepping out for more snacks. Every now and then, someone would share a thought aloud. “After watching everything unfold on Saturday night, I wondered how they’d try to blame this on me,” Kimmel remarked. He communicated with the writers via Slack, quickly approving or rejecting their ideas with thumbs-up and thumbs-down emojis. Once a draft was ready, he’d munch on ice and rewrite it to sound natural and conversational, like a regular guy chatting at a bar. He explained that he aims for a tone that’s “assertive but reasonable,” adding, “I’m typically inclined to fight back, and in that way, Donald Trump and I aren’t so different.”