This year's Oscars were largely predicted to be very political — so on Sunday night, host Jimmy Kimmel decided to kick things off by addressing the elephant in the room.

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After calling for Democrats and Republicans alike to try and find neutral ground by listening to one another, he jokingly claimed he would try to do the same by burying the hatchet with his long-term enemy, Matt Damon. Unsurprisingly, this didn't go over very well, so Kimmel then pivoted back to politics — and immediately took a dig at President Donald Trump.

"I want to say thank you to President Trump," he said. "Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That's gone, thanks to him."

And that wasn't all: Later during his opening monologue, Kimmel also took some time to sing the praises of Meryl Streep — who Trump notoriously referred to as "overrated" after she criticized him during her speech at the Golden Globes. To end the segment, he pointed at her and quipped, "Nice dress, by the way. Is it an Ivanka?" — referring, of course, to first daughter Ivanka Trump.

From: Cosmopolitan US