Jimmy Kimmel mocked conservative Newsmax commentators on Monday for trying to “pin” Rudy Giuliani’s hospitalization on him after pundits pointed to one of his jokes from last week when he quipped the former New York City mayor was “rising from the grave.”

Giuliani was admitted to a Florida hospital over the weekend and said to be in critical condition on Monday following a bout with pneumonia.

During the opening monologue of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night, the host addressed claims circulating in right-wing media for jumping to conclusions in much the same way they did in April, when a White House Correspondents’ Dinner skit that took aim at Melania Trump came just days before a shooting at the event.

Addressing the news about Giuliani, Kimmel began: “When I read this, I thought, I really thought. I said, I wonder if they’ll try to blame this on me.”

“And then, sure enough,” he continued, “One of these podcast bozos points to a joke I made about Rudy on Thursday about him being a vampire and then suggests I might actually have some inside knowledge of what’s going on in Trumptown there.”

Kimmel turned his attention to Newsmax coverage of the Giuliani gag, where panelists questioned whether the joke was appropriate.

One asked, “Is this supposed to be comedy?” while another said, “He’s really not funny,” describing the remark as “abhorrent” and accusing Kimmel of operating under the “gauze of comedy.”

Seizing on the apparent slip, Kimmel leaned into the phrase during his show, staging a visual gag in which he appeared beneath a literal sheet of gauze held up by performers.

“Right. In fact, I’m under the gauze of comedy right now,” he said.

He extended the bit by joking that the “gauze” granted him the ability to foresee events before they happen.

“Every day in the morning, I wake up, I make coffee, and then I look into the future to see which events have yet to occur and then we write jokes we know are going to make trouble,” he said.

Kimmel briefly struck a more serious tone, adding: “For the record, I hope Rudy Giuliani lives another 100 years,” before returning to humor with a reference to Giuliani’s widely mocked press conference outside a landscaping business in Philadelphia.

Watch above via ABC.

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