Jimmy Kimmel May Say Goodbye to Late Night | The TMZ Podcast

Hey, welcome to the TMZ podcast. Good morning. I'm Branson Quirk. And I'm Tony Smith. Uh, wow. We have a variety of stories to talk about today. Um, I mean, they're all very different, very different, very, very different. So we're going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel, which may come to an end. Are you a fan of Jimmy Kimmel live? I I'm just a fan of late night shows in general and just at least the overall vibe. And I really hope there's a whole lot of speculation going on right now. And I really hope it's not entirely true. But we'll we'll get into all the details. Yeah, I mean, and we're being told and the ABC is saying one thing and we're being told by sources that are actually on set much different. So we're trying to figure it out, but we'll get all to those details. And we're also going to talk about Donald Trump. Gavin Newsom is calling him out over him, trashing him over, essentially saying that Trump said that he was near ground zero when 9-11 happened. But based on some evidence in an interview that he did on Trump and Trump Tower over the years, nowhere near. Yeah, there's multiple different accounts. And Gavin Newsom's saying you're lying, Trump. Right. And then we're going to finish it off and talk about how AI is going to kill all of you guys by the end of 12. Oh, we'll get to that. But starting off Jimmy Kimmel live. So it's reportedly set to end after next season is what we're being told. Potentially bringing Jimmy Kimmel's more than two decade run in ABC to a close. So Page Fixer first reported this that Kimmel's current ABC contract is not expected to be renewed when it expires in May 2027. So have you been watching Kimmel? I I haven't been watching. I've I'll say this. I was more of a Colbert fan than I was a Kimmel or Jimmy Falun or Seth Meyers, any of the late night show hosts. So when Colbert I would watch Colbert every day. But Jimmy Kimmel, when all this stuff happened with Trump over this past summer, I was tuning in a little bit more to him. And he's just a good vibe, in my opinion. I think he's I think he's fairly funny. I don't think he's as funny as like Colbert or any of the other show late night hosts, but he's really good. And yeah, I just really hope this isn't true. But ABC is denying that the show is actually ending. They're just calling it speculation, apparently. Yeah, speculation. And that's what ABC is saying. But there's people that are on set. A source close tells TMZ that there has been talk among the staff that Kimmel is working on pitches for other shows and podcasts around town. I mean, it really raises the possibility just because you look at what Conan O'Brien did. He has a podcast now and he went into that space. And then all the trouble that the network had with Jimmy Kimmel and everything, as we know, he went off the air for six whole days. And then they brought him back because Disney and him had, quote, thoughtful conversations in which they felt that bringing him back was was OK. Because he he had spoke about Charlie Kirk's death in a way that upset a lot of people. Right. But I'll tell you this. I'm a conservative, right? And I'm not afraid to say that. And I like Jimmy Kimmel. I think he's funny. I think he I think he's a good he brings a lot of good energy, in my opinion. And it's just like even if you don't watch it for the comedy, per se, I just I just think he's an entertaining, entertaining guy. And, you know, I really hope that like like like you just said, we're getting one side from ABC saying, oh, no, that's speculation. And we're getting all these other reports that he's working on podcasts and all this other stuff. I think if this is true, it would be truly an end of an era in television because we've been just me and you were the same age. We've been accustomed just to having these shows just around all the time. All the time. Feels like that more and more. We just seen Colbert just ended. Now, if this is true, that means Jimmy, that's a big domino that would fall. Jimmy Kimmel would end. Then who's next? Is Jimmy Falun next? Is Jon Stewart show next? It just raises a whole lot of questions, and I really hope it ain't true. It's the last late night show on the West Coast. So that would be the end of it for us over here. We have all the daytime over here. Right. You know, we've got like Jennifer Hudson show, the Sherry show. You got all these daytime shows. But hey, keep just keep Kimmel there. Just I think we should keep all all late night shows there. And apparently they weren't. He's not doing too bad. I mean, according to the late nighter, citing Nielsen data, adults aged 18 to 49. The average Jimmy Kimmel live averaged three point one five million total viewers and five hundred five thousand viewers in the in that demographic range in June. So fairly recently, it doesn't seem like it's doing too bad. So it would be really puzzling to me that this would. Well, Jimmy has spoken out not and it's not even that recent. Like a couple of years ago, he was speaking out about how he was ready to move on from the show. And I get it. And if that's what Jimmy wants, then go for it. I hope that they could maybe find a replacement show, something else to fill that space, fill that void. But I'm what I'm guessing is that they're probably eyeing it. Looking at the ratings, ABC is going to probably make their decision before May 2027 probably hasn't made it yet. And that's why they're saying speculation. But when the staff is scared and they're looking for jobs and they're looking around a good sign, then then it's probably at least a conversation that's been had because these are credible staff members that are saying this. Right. So the last thing I'll say on this is I just feel like media in general, or at least let's let's just keep it to television for this conversation. I think we just need to evolve with the times. I don't think Colbert should have ended. I think it should have just evolved. We're seeing YouTube just explode in popularity. And social media obviously consumes everything. I just feel like there's a place for these type of shows. We just need to find in the year 2026 how it could work. And I think it's still does work. So that means we'd only have Falun and Stewart left, if I'm correct, late, late night. And Seth Meyers, too. Seth Meyers. Who's the other guy on HBO? What was his name? He's John Oliver. Yes. John Oliver. Oh, he's on the Bill Maher show. Yeah, I guess. But again, like those a little bit more political, a little more political, a little more real, real world social issues. And then but like Jimmy Falun, those like those two guys, that's like the staples. So we'll see what happens. We'll keep you updated if we get anything. Moving on to Gavin Newsom. He is having it out with Donald Trump right now. He's accusing President Donald Trump of lying about his whereabouts during the September 11th attacks, calling Trump's latest account, quote, absolutely disgusting. We have Trump talking about his account. And we'll play it for you right now. If you get two firemen, we thought it was coming down on top of us and two firemen, big, strong guys. And I'm not the smallest guy in the world. They grabbed me under the arm, said, got to get out of here. And they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself. But they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn't come down. U.S. Steel. So what Trump is saying is that, according to him, two firefighters picked him up outside the building and ran him away from the area. He repeatedly joked that carrying him away was not an easy task because of his size. Trump maintains the story is true. But Newsom's press office is challenging this account on X. Newsom's office wrote, quote, an absolutely disgusting thing to lie about. Do we have? Yeah, we're showing that all he said. That's pretty much what he said. I mean, but he's he is calling him out. And I have seen I have seen clips and we posted it on our website, TMZ Dotcom. There are Trump has given differing accounts over the years of where he was during on on the day of 9-11 and where he was after. But it's just I think he's calling him out for lying, saying you're saying you're here one place this day and then on another day in this place. If we're trying to refer to the other account, go back to September 11, 2001. Trump called the New York television station W.W.R. TV from his office at Trump Tower on the day of the attacks. Trump Tower is about four miles from ground zero rather than a quarter mile away at the U.S. Steel building. So during that interview, Trump said, quote, I have a window that looks directly at the World Trade Center. I saw this huge explosion. I was with a group of people. I really couldn't even believe it. So right there, totally conflicts because he said he saw the explosion. Totally contradicts what he just said. I was with a group of people. I mean, he is older. Maybe he's forgetting. But how could you forget a day like you can't? You can't. I just think. How do you forget? I think a lot of people, I'm not saying if you support whoever you want to support, but I think a lot of people just pay attention to his persona and how he just the way he tells stories, just engages his audience. And no matter what he says, even if it conflicts with what he said 20 some years ago, though, they'll run with it. And I don't blame Gavin Newsom for calling him out. Good on him. Trump did visit ground zero later on. But in terms of the conflicting stories, we'll see what Trump has to say. I'm sure there'll be a truth. So there's probably going to be a Twitter or AI post of Newsom in the next six to seven, eight hours. Or two business days. Speaking of AI. Yeah. Is it going to destroy us, Branson? So AI potentially is going to destroy the entire human race by the end of the decade. You heard that right by the end of the decade. So there is. So why? So why? Why? I'll tell you right now. So there is this former AI employee, a researcher of this company called Anthropic, which is made up of former open AI employees as well. Well, he just resigned. He went on social media on X and posted a bombshell resignation thread saying, quote, I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both open AI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving super intelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below. And he continues saying that the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible. But I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger. So this goes beyond like like like nuclear scares and fear and all that. He said, do not underestimate the power of the technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains. And progress is not slowing. You spoke about this. So scary. Bring up the bring up the the moment that recently the system hacked. Yeah, apparently. So I think it was about a month or two ago. Open AI, apparently they were doing some experiments and apparently some AI models broke out of containment and hacked into another AI company, apparently. And just hearing this and then coinciding with this report and there's just there's been numerous reports of I've seen all over social media and just everywhere of these rogue models and just AI like doing stuff that we don't intend it to do. And that's the scary part. And I feel like humanity is moving way too fast with AI right now. I feel like over the past five years, we've seen AI just skyrocket in popularity and usage. I remember when I was in college, barely at the end of college, barely anybody was using it. Like people were just starting to use AI. And over these past four years, ever, you know, ever since I've been out here, it's just exploded. And I was bound to happen. It was bound to happen because it's a race now. So all these companies are competing with each other. And that's what happens when companies compete. Technology advances. Look at the European nations. You know, way back in the day, I was actually just looking into this. I actually recently looked up what would happen if the Roman Empire didn't fall. Then it would not have led to the European nations competing with each other to advance technology. So it either would have slow technology or rapidly increased it. It's hard to say. But let me show you something really quick. I was driving home and I was talking to AI on the way home just to see how much it's advanced. I was dumbfounded. I'm going to put this next to the speaker. They have made the AI voice so much more personable, right? It now it now will say things like, hmm, hmm. OK, that's that's that's the offsetting part to me. I'm going to play it. You want you want to do it? All right. Here we go. Hey, how are you doing this morning? I'm doing all right. Thanks. What's on your mind? I just wanted to talk to you about my day. Do you mind just listening to me, listening to me talk for a little bit? So I just had a really bad morning. I'm I got to work and I didn't have my protein shake. And you know, if I had had my protein shake, you know, I would have felt so much better if I had my protein shake. Right. You hear that? Did you hear that? Yes. You hear that? I'm right here listening. Yeah, I hear that. It sounds like that missing shape really threw you off. Dude, that to me, that is it's not a person. I'm telling you, when have you seen the commercials? I think I think it might be Chachi B.T. or OpenAI commercial. It's of that of this old woman. She's sitting on a desk and then she's talking like what you what you just did. And on Hulu, right? Yeah, it's it's not a person. And that's why that wasn't a person. No, no. Like she was told. Oh, yeah. Just like just like you were doing right now. So it's not a person. Why are we normalizing like talking to? No, we need more in the world of social media technology. We need more human to human interaction, not more AI to human interact. And I'm not I'm not fully bashing it. I'm generally I would say I'm 90 percent against it, 10 percent for it. I think it has its uses. But if we just seen right now what you what you just displayed, all the tweets we just read, I think humanity's moving too fast. We just need to slow down. I'll tell you this. How I know it's going to another level is when I was talking to that voice yesterday, like before I would do that and it was like robotic. And I was like, whatever, you know, it's just AI. But now, like, I feel like I'm really talking to a person. I don't care. I knew it was AI. That's the thing I knew in my brain. That's not real. But to have it responding in like the pauses and everything like that still brings some type of like reservation in me to like not open up as much as I would to this robot, even though it's not real. Like I thought that was a normal person I was talking to unconsciously. Yeah, we don't have time for comments. Unfortunately, not. We do have to go film the TMZ TV show, which you guys know and love. Right. I hope so. We will try to get to more comments in the morning, guys. Sorry of that. Afternoon, actually. We'll be back in the afternoon. We'll be back in the afternoon. So please be back here and we'll talk to you more about this. But yeah, please. I don't know what you guys can do. I don't know what kind of plan you can come up with by 2030, but I don't know. AI, please don't wipe us out. Unfortunately, I think it's going to go faster and there's nothing we can do about it. And I'm just being honest, just not to be, you know, dark. Hey, go have a good day at work, guys. I know you're driving right now, but have a good day at work. Bye, guys. See you later.