Mike Rowe doubles down on defense of blue-collar workers after Kimmel’s ‘tone deaf’ joke
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After being mocked on social media, “Dirty Jobs” veteran Mike Rowe once again blasted Jimmy Kimmel’s “dumb” monologue mocking new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin as a former plumber.
Rowe said she didn’t realize her post about late-night host Kimmel “insulting plumbers” had gone viral because she was too busy working.
“I want to apologize for not responding to any of the last 22,000 comments I wrote,” he wrote. “I’ve been filming all week and I just saw what I saw with Jimmy Kimmel and Markwayne Mullin who was a woodworking mechanic that went viral.”
Rowe said Kimmel’s dig at Mullin for being a former plumber is evidence of a “long-standing prejudice” against blue-collar workers as “uneducated, one-dimensional workers who never went to college.”
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“I did not suggest – not even remotely – that a plumber was naturally fit to hold a cabinet position,” he wrote in X. What he said is that being a sponsor should not exclude someone from such a position.”
Mike Rowe said he was offended by Jimmy Kimmel insulting the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, for being a plumber. (Michael Buckner/WireImage; Getty Images)
Kimmel, a regular critic of the Trump administration, was recently criticized as elitist for using Mullin’s past experience as a pipeline business owner as evidence that he is unfit to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
“Trump got a new generation of intellectuals, including his newly confirmed secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne ‘Chuck Mike Bruce Dave’ Melon – Mullin. Maybe Melon is better,” Kimmel said on the air on March 24. “Now he’s a senator from Oklahoma. Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-weight MMA fighter. protecting us from terrorism now Did Super Mario work?
He continued, “But honestly — I mean, if Trump’s going to keep picking these unqualified people to run the department, why wouldn’t you be very happy about it? I mean, next time, instead of Markwayne, how about Lil Wayne for homeland security? At least we can get a concert out of it, right?”
Kimmel later doubled down, saying, “I’m not upset that the head of Homeland Security was a plumber. I’m upset that he’s not a plumber anymore.”
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Mike Rowe said that focus on Markwayne Mullin, right, being a former plumber’s testimony to the “enduring insults” directed at blue-collar trade workers. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)
Rowe had ripped late-night host Kimmel for the dig, saying she was offended by the “suggestion that skilled workers shouldn’t evolve into something new.”
He asked if Mullin’s career progression from plumbing business owner to Congress and then to senior Cabinet official “isn’t the embodiment of the American Dream?”
On Friday, he wrote that the stereotypes promoted by comedians like Kimmel are contributing to America’s severe shortage of skilled workers.
“Reasonable people can argue about what’s funny and what’s not. In fact, I couldn’t care less. What I care about,” he wrote, “is the extraordinary shortage of plumbers and electricians our country faces, and the lingering prejudices and stereotypes that continue to discourage people from considering a profitable trade.”
“Jimmy’s humor — and the way his audience reacts to it,” Rowe writes, “is proof that those stereotypes and superstitions are alive and well.”
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Jimmy Kimmel, host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” at the Disney Advertising Upfront on May 13, 2025, at North Javits in New York City. (Michael Le Brecht/Disney via Getty Images)
Digging even deeper, Rowe asked, “How do their credentials and diplomas relate to their actual skills? Aren’t we already surrounded by an army of fully trained professionals who don’t know what the hell they’re doing?”
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“Jimmy is entitled to his opinion, as is anyone else who believes Mullin is unfit to lead DHS,” he wrote in X. “However, the Constitution says otherwise, and so does the Senate.”
Rowe, who runs the nonprofit mikeroweWORKS Foundation, concluded by encouraging people to start an apprenticeship, saying, “Who knows? It could be the first step on your way to the Presidency.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Kimmel’s spokespeople for comment.
