Viewers react to Jimmy Kimmel calling Florida 'America's North Korea': 'Hateful ignorance'

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ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel infuriated viewers after disparaging the state of Florida as "America's North Korea" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Friday night.

"In America's North Korea, the Sunshine State, from time to time, we enjoy taking a look at what's going on, and tonight we are doing it again in a Gov. DeSantis edition of 'This Week in Florida,'" Kimmel said while introducing a video of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis kicking off the "2021 Python challenge." The annual event challenges participants to remove invasive Burmese pythons "with the goal of empowering people to take an active role in conserving the Florida Everglades through invasive species removal," the competition website explains.

"As part of my focus on restoring the Everglades, I’ve charged FWC with dedicating more resources and taking innovative approaches to removing invasive Burmese pythons," DeSantis said in a press conference introducing this year's contest.

"Alleged comedian," is how The Post Millennial described Kimmel after his mocking monologue.

"How Hollywood political group-think produces hateful ignorance," observed Steven Law, CEO of One Nation and American Crossroads.

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"And that's why everyone's moving there?" asked conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey.

"Late night comedy continues to be LOL funny on ABC!" Fox News contributor Joe Concha quipped.

Several others noted that Florida is the "polar opposite" of North Korea because DeSantis largely kept the state free and open during the coronavirus pandemic, unlike some of his progressive counterparts. 

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The governor appeared to be a favorite target of the media's over the course of the past year for those decisions.

"Those lockdowns have not worked, they’ve done great damage to our country," DeSantis said in May. "We can never let something like this happen again. Florida took a different path – we’ve had more success as a result."

A now-infamous CBS' "60 Minutes" segment suggested that the governor gave the Publix grocery store chain preferable treatment for the coronavirus vaccine based on its donations to his PAC. The segment also painted DeSantis as a villain who prioritized at-risk senior citizens over teachers. He pushed back against "60 Minutes" for what he called "deceptive editing."

"They’ve issued a lot of mealy-mouthed statements since the episode aired, they knew what they were putting on the air was false," DeSantis said on "Fox & Friends."

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As DeSantis noted in May, 40 states had higher per capita mortality for seniors for COVID than Florida and yet the state is "open for business." keeping unemployment at 4.8%.