Jimmy Kimmel fights back tears addressing Florida shooting: 'Children are being murdered'

Jimmy Kimmel got choked up during his late-night monologue on Thursday night while discussing the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“Don’t you dare let anyone say it’s too soon to be talking about [gun control],” Kimmel said amid an emotional takedown of Trump’s approach to the tragedy. “Because you said it after Vegas, you said it after Sandy Hook, you say that after every one of these — eight, now — fatal school shootings we had in this country this year.

“Children are being murdered,” he declared as his voice broke. Addressing President Trump directly, he added, “Do something. We still haven’t even talked about it. You still haven’t done anything about this. Nothing. You’ve literally done nothing. Actually, you’ve done worse than nothing. You like to say this is a mental health issue, but one of your very first acts as president, Mr. Trump, was actually roll back the regulations that were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill.”

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault-style rifle, was arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder after opening fire at Stoneman Douglas. Seventeen people were killed on Wednesday and 14 others were injured.

In an address delivered from the White House, Trump said he plans to visit families in Parkland and work with “state and local leaders” to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health.”

“I agree, this is a mental health issue,” Kimmel said, “because if you don’t think we need to do something about it, you’re obviously mentally ill.”

Earlier in his monologue, the late-night host urged Americans to “tell your buddies in Congress, tell Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio, all the family men who care so much about their communities, that what we need are laws, real laws, that do everything possible to keep assault rifles out of the hands of people who are going to shoot our kids.”

He also called on Trump again to fulfill his promise to bring common sense to the swamp on Capitol Hill. “Tell these Congressmen and lobbyists, who infest that swamp you said you were going to drain, force these allegedly Christian men and women who stuff their pockets with money from the NRA year after year after year to do something,” he said. “Now. Not later. Now.”

Watch Kimmel’s monologue in the video above.