Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night recalled that it was just over a year ago when he was pulled off the air after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened ABC over a joke he made about the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“While I would like to say that things have improved over the last year, they haven’t really,” Kimmel said. “We are still being threatened by the FCC.”
At that moment, screen icon Robert De Niro crashed the set, not as himself but as the FCC chair.
“You’re being threatened by the FCC?” he asked. “Who is threatening you? Am I threatening you? Do you feel threatened by me?”
As he spoke, he poked Kimmel with a baseball bat ― a not-so-subtle nod to one of his most chilling scenes as mob boss Al Capone in “The Untouchables.”
“Hey, look who it is everybody. It’s the chairman of the FCC,” Kimmel said. “What was your name again?”
“My name is none of your fucking business,” De Niro said, adding that he was there for an “inspection” of the show.
“Now if you will shut that fucking mouth of yours, I have a few items I’d like to discuss,” De Niro said as he brought out a list of 192 insults Kimmel aimed at President Donald Trump.
When Kimmel tried to interject, De Niro cut him off.
“Did I tell you it was your turn to talk, numb nuts?” he said. “You speak when I tell you to speak and otherwise you shut the fuck up.”
De Niro said that, from now on, Kimmel would have to follow each Trump insult with something nice about the president, and offered him an example.
“If you were to say something like, ‘Trump wasn’t invited to Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday party cuz they were afraid he’d start eating the cake before the kid jumped out,’ then you got to also compliment his penmanship in that naked lady birthday poem he didn’t write,” De Niro explained. “Am I clear?”
“Not really,” Kimmel said. “It just seems to me like you’re trying to control what I do and do not say by abusing the power of the federal government.”
“Finally! You got it,” De Niro said. “Dumb fuck is finally starting to get it!”
Then, with one last profanity ― “Fuck the Red Sox!” ― he walked off the set to cheers.
Check it out in the Wednesday night monologue: