Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has identified a Utah woman as the dumbest person on Earth.
The host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” retweeted a clip of KTVX-Channel 4′s coverage of an anti-mask protest in St. George on Friday, which has gone viral online. Kimmel added the note, “introducing … the world’s dumbest person (at :51).” And 51 seconds into the clip, one of the protesters says this to KTVX reporter Katie Karalis:
“When George Floyd was saying, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and then he died,” the St. George woman said. “And now we’re wearing a mask and we say, ‘I can’t breathe,’ but we’re being forced to wear it anyway.”
Floyd was not wearing a mask when he died while in police custody on May 25. His death — which has been ruled a homicide — came after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than seven minutes. KTVX-Channel 4′s coverage did not include that context.
Chelsea Clinton retweeted Kimmel, commenting, “She’s not confused. She’s racist.”
The Utah Department of Health urges residents to wear masks in public settings, noting COVID-19 is most frequently spread through droplets and aerosol particles from the nose and mouth and that masks significantly decrease the chance of transmission.
While localities such as cities and counties can opt to put mask mandates in place, the only statewide order is for K-12 schools. St. George and Washington County do not have local mandates.
Another woman at the protest yelled, “Not on the backs of my kids are you going to get more federal funds, that’s how I feel about that!” A young boy said, “The flu kills more than coronavirus” — a factually incorrect statement.
The COVID-19 death toll in the United States has exceeded every seasonal flu since the 1918-19 pandemic. The greatest flu death toll in the past 100 years was 116,000 in 1957-58; the current count for COVID-19 is nearing 200,000. KTVX also did not include that context.
And another woman declares she “hates masks” because “most child molesters love 'em.”
That’s led to tweets like this, from a Vanity Fair contributing editor: “There’s a lot here, but there’s one moment that exceeds all others. You’ll know it when you see it.” He later opined that there are at least two unbelievable moments in the clip.
And Jarred Carrabis of Barstool Sports tweeted, “This has to be a ['Saturday Night Live'] sketch. It has to be.”
Kimmel, who has been taking the summer off from his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” duties, returns to ABC as the host of the virtual Emmy Awards show on Sunday and returns to his talk show on Monday night.
