Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is set to headline a pricey Los Angeles fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, months after Disney yanked him off the air for smearing a murdered conservative activist's killer as a Trump supporter. Guests must pony up $25,000 to attend the March 10 reception and dinner for House Democrats.
Kimmel, 58, is billed as the event's "special guest," just below former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Also listed among the ambassadors, Democratic donors, and other politicos on the host committee is Shonda Rhimes, the television producer behind popular series including Grey's Anatomy and Bridgerton.
The party of the working class, in other words, wants $25,000 just to walk through the door.
The tiered pricing structure tells you everything about who Democrats actually serve. Higher-priced tickets range from $44,300 for the "Leader's Circle" to $310,100 for the "Jeffries 300" level. There's also an "Event Chair" option priced at $100,000. The invitation does not explain what the "300" designation signifies, though at that price, it presumably buys more than a chicken dinner.
This is the same party that lectures Americans about income inequality and the rigged economy. The same party that brands itself as the voice of waitresses, teachers, and warehouse workers. Those people are not attending a $25,000 minimum fundraiser in Los Angeles, the New York Post reported. They are, however, expected to vote for the candidates this money will fund.
A DCCC spokesman did not respond to The Post's request for comment.
The DCCC's choice of headliner is revealing. In September 2025, ABC and its corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, suspended production of Jimmy Kimmel Live! following criticism over Kimmel's monologue commentary about President Donald Trump and his supporters' reaction to the murder of conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
There was just one problem. Authorities say the 22-year-old grew up in a conservative household in southern Utah but was enmeshed in "leftist ideology." His parents told investigators he had turned politically left and pro-LGBTQ rights in the last year. He told his transgender partner that he targeted Kirk because he had "had enough of his hatred."
Kimmel's late-night show was pulled from the air on September 17, hours after the U.S. government threatened to cancel broadcasting licenses because of comments the host made about the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the matter could be handled "the easy way or the hard way" for ABC and parent company Disney.
The announcement came after both Nexstar and Sinclair said they would stop airing Kimmel's show on their ABC-affiliated stations. Nexstar's broadcasting division president Andrew Alford called Kimmel's comments "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse."
Kimmel returned to the air roughly a week later. In his comeback monologue, he offered something that fell short of an actual apology:
It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don't think there's anything funny about it.
Note the framing. Not "I was wrong." Not "I misled my audience." The word "intention" does a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. It acknowledges the outcome without accepting responsibility for the action. Washington has a word for that kind of statement: a non-apology.
And now, five months later, House Democrats have decided this is the man they want standing next to Pelosi and Jeffries at a six-figure fundraiser. The message is clear: Kimmel's conduct wasn't a liability. It was an audition.
The event comes as both parties are stacking cash for what promises to be a brutal midterm cycle. The DCCC had $115 million in its campaign war chest at the end of 2025, compared to $117 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to the Associated Press.
The NRCC has officially outraised the DCCC for 2025, Q4, the month of December, and cash on hand, a historic milestone that underscores shifting momentum on the fundraising front. Democrats have historically dominated the House campaign money race. Not anymore.
Republicans currently hold 218 seats, Democrats hold 214, and three seats remain vacant, making every dollar and every district a live battleground. Democrats need to gain a net of three districts to win a majority in the House. Republicans can lose no more than two districts and retain a majority.
With margins that thin, Democrats clearly feel they need Hollywood's help. The question is whether attaching themselves to a late-night host who used a conservative's assassination to push a false narrative helps or hurts that cause.
This fundraiser fits a broader trajectory. Late-night television has steadily abandoned any pretense of being entertainment and transformed into a Democratic campaign operation with a studio audience. Kimmel endorsed Kamala Harris for president in 2024. He campaigned for Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen during a Las Vegas event in 2024. Former President Joe Biden infamously froze up on stage during a 2024 LA fundraiser headlined by Kimmel.
The relationship between Democratic politics and late-night comedy has become so fused that the genre barely qualifies as entertainment anymore. It's fundraising infrastructure with a monologue.
After the July 2025 cancellation of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Trump quipped that Kimmel was next. Colbert's show is winding down. Kimmel's ratings have never recovered to pre-suspension levels. The audience is voting with its remote controls, even if the donor class isn't.
That's the contradiction Democrats can't resolve. They need celebrity culture to raise money, but celebrity culture is alienating the voters they need to win seats in swing districts. A $310,100 fundraiser headlined by Jimmy Kimmel in Los Angeles does not play well in the suburbs of Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Those voters don't want to be talked down to. They want to be heard.
The DCCC could have picked anyone. They picked the man who falsely characterized Charlie Kirk's killer on national television, refused to issue a real apology, and turned his suspension into a victory lap. They paired him with Nancy Pelosi, whose retirement announcement in November ended a four-decade career in Congress but apparently not her fundraising career, and Hakeem Jeffries, who needs every dollar he can scrape together to flip three seats.
The event comes as Democrats are favored to take back the House majority with President Trump facing political headwinds and falling popularity, at least according to the same media class that predicted a Clinton landslide and a Harris blowout. Democrats have been "favored" before.
What the March 10 fundraiser really reveals is a party that has decided its path back to power runs through the checkbooks of coastal elites and the monologues of compromised entertainers. They aren't building a coalition. They're hosting a dinner party.
Twenty-five thousand dollars a plate. And they wonder why they keep losing working-class voters.
