Chides Roy Moore

After Twitter fight, Kimmel chides Roy Moore in late-night monologue

By LOUIS NELSON

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel took his Twitter spat with Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore offline Thursday night, delivering a monologue on his own understanding of “Christian values” and lobbing insults at the Republican accused of molesting teenage girls as young as 14.

The two began trading barbs online earlier Thursday, when Moore addressed Kimmel on Twitter, writing “if you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man,” in response to a bit the ABC late night host had filmed at a Moore rally. Kimmel quickly accepted, albeit with an insult, “sounds great Roy - let me know when you get some Christian values and I’ll be there!”

Kimmel offered a lengthier rebuke of Moore, who has built his campaign in large part around his identity as a Christian, in his Thursday night monologue.

“If you’re open to it, when we sit down, I will share with you what I learned at my church. At my church, forcing yourself on underaged girls is a no-no. Some even consider it to be a sin,” Kimmel said. “When you commit a sin at our church, at our church, we’re encouraged to confess and ask for forgiveness for the sin. Not to call the women you allegedly victimized liars and damage them even more.”

“But maybe your church is different. I don’t know,” he added.

Moore has been accused by multiple women of pursuing sexual relationship and initiating sexual situations with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. The former Alabama Supreme Court chief judge has denied allegations of wrongdoing, suggesting that they are part of a Washington conspiracy to keep him out of office, but admitted in an interview last month that it’s possible that he dated teenage girls when he was significantly older.

Kimmel, who has for years hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, has taken on the role of a political activist of late, wading into the fight over Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare by recalling his newborn son’s survival of a heart condition and pillorying the GOP proposal as inadequate to help less wealthy parents whose kids have similar conditions. Like other late night hosts, he has mined President Donald Trump’s administration for material on an almost nightly basis.

Among the reports about Moore to emerge in recent weeks is that he was once banned from an Alabama mall, where he allegedly would bother teenage girls. Kimmel said in his monologue that he would agree to meet Moore at the mall he had reportedly been banned from, accompanied by high school cheerleaders. “If you can somehow manage to keep little Roy in your little cowboy pants when those nubile cheerleaders come bounding in,” Kimmel said, “we’ll have a little Panda Express and we’ll talk about Christian values.”

Kimmel outlined his own Christianity – that he had been baptized and confirmed, has had his children baptized and is close friends with a priest – but said he would be willing to “put my Christian values aside just for you” if Moore’s “man to man” invitation was in fact a challenge to a fight.

“There is no one I would love to fight more than you,” Kimmel said. “So if you are challenging me to a fight, here’s what we’ll do. Let’s find a place to do it. I’ll wear a Girl Scout uniform so you can have something to get excited about.”