Jimmy Kimmel used his ABC late-night monologue this week to taunt Spencer Pratt for losing the Los Angeles mayoral race, and to rent the man a U-Haul. The punchline landed on a family that lost everything in the Pacific Palisades fires at the beginning of 2025. The response from Pratt and Meghan McCain was swift, and it exposed a pattern that keeps repeating in late-night television: wealthy entertainers punching down at people who dared to challenge the political establishment.
Pratt, the former "Hills" reality star turned Republican mayoral candidate, had said he would leave Los Angeles if he lost. He did lose. And Kimmel, rather than letting the comment pass, turned it into a segment.
Kimmel addressed Pratt directly during the monologue, as Yahoo Entertainment reported:
"So now, we wait to hear from Spencer Pratt. You know, he clearly promised that if Karen Bass or Nithya Raman we a were elected mayor, he was gonna move out of LA. He said he was done with La. Spencer, if you're watching, we are so, so sorry to see you go. We're gonna miss the h*** out of you. You're a man of your word, and you've gotta go!"
Then Kimmel rented Pratt a U-Haul. The audience laughed. The bit moved on.
What the bit skipped over is the reason Pratt wouldn't need a moving truck. He and his wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fires in 2025. The fires that leveled neighborhoods while the city's Democratic leadership scrambled to explain why hydrants ran dry and emergency response fell short.
Pratt made that point himself on social media afterward.
"Jimmy Kimmel I guess you missed the part of the story i don't need a U-Haul...I have nothing left to pack 🤷♂️"
He posted footage of the fire that destroyed his home. No spin. Just the wreckage.
A few hours after the clip circulated, Meghan McCain, who had her own contentious run on "The View", saw it and responded on X.
"Jimmy Kimmel is a mean, heartless b****** and no amount of on air crying will convince me or anyone else otherwise. The day he is off air will be a better day for the country."
Blunt language. But the underlying point is hard to argue with on the merits. Kimmel's segment treated a fire victim's mayoral loss as comedy material. Pratt ran on a Republican platform focused on crime and emergency management, the very failures that left families like his homeless. Whether his campaign was serious or quixotic, the man's house burned down. That context matters.
This is not the first time Kimmel's political commentary has drawn heat. His remarks about Charlie Kirk previously led to a brief suspension by ABC. President Donald Trump has criticized Kimmel in multiple posts, calling him "no way funny as attested in the television ratings."
Kimmel has been increasingly in the spotlight over political takes, a trajectory shared by other late-night hosts. Seth Meyers and others at NBC have drawn similar criticism. But Kimmel's case stands out because ABC itself felt compelled to act after the Kirk incident, and because the network apparently saw no issue with a segment mocking a disaster victim this time around.
The ratings context is worth noting. An editor's note in the reporting observed that Kimmel is "way up in the ratings since Colbert's cancelation." A bigger audience means a bigger platform, and, in theory, a greater obligation not to use it to ridicule people who lost their homes.
Pratt's loss set up the general election matchup that the city's political class wanted all along. Nithya Raman secured the second Democratic spot and will face Karen Bass. Two Democrats. No Republican option for a city reeling from fire, crime, and homelessness.
Pratt ran as a Republican in a city where that label alone makes you an outsider. His platform centered on crime and emergency management, issues that hit home, literally, when the Palisades fires tore through his neighborhood. Voters chose otherwise. That's their right. But a late-night host using the loss to mock a man who watched his house burn is not political satire. It's cruelty dressed up with a laugh track.
Kimmel broadcasts from a comfortable perch inside the entertainment industry. He earns millions. His home is intact. He has the luxury of treating Los Angeles politics as material for a bit.
Spencer Pratt does not have that luxury. He lost his home. He ran for office, imperfectly, perhaps, but he ran. He put his name on a ballot and campaigned on the issues that mattered to his neighbors. When he lost, a millionaire television host rented him a moving truck as a joke.
McCain, for her part, has a track record of speaking bluntly. She recently took a dig at daytime TV after Kelly Clarkson decided to exit. She has publicly criticized Gwyneth Paltrow. She once went after "And Just Like That" hard enough that the show's stars responded. She is not afraid of a fight, and she picks them freely. But her reaction to the Kimmel segment was not a celebrity feud. It was a straightforward observation about conduct.
The deeper irony here is that Kimmel's bit inadvertently made Pratt's case for him. Pratt argued that Los Angeles needed better emergency management and accountability from its leaders. The fires proved him right. He lost the race anyway, and the city will now choose between two Democrats, neither of whom will face a general-election challenge from anyone running on the failures that left Pacific Palisades in ashes.
Kimmel could have noted the irony. He could have acknowledged that a man who lost his home to a preventable disaster had reason to be frustrated with city leadership. Instead, he rented a U-Haul.
That tells you everything about where late-night television's sympathies actually lie. Not with the people who lost their homes. Not with the voters who wanted a different direction. With the establishment that failed them, and with the comfortable class that finds the whole thing amusing.
When the man you're mocking has nothing left to pack, maybe the joke is on you.
