Drag Race All Star Engages Elementary Students with “Under Siege,” Culminating in a Symbolic Act Amidst National Debate Over Drag and Children’s Interactions
Los Angeles, CA – October 16, 2025 – Late-night television took a politically charged and theatrically dramatic turn this week as RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars winner Trixie Mattel, 36, hosted a memorable “Drag Queen Storytime” segment on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! for host Jimmy Kimmel, 57. The chosen literary work? Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation, the new memoir by Eric Trump, 41, which received a decidedly unfavorable reception from its young audience and a definitive end in a wood chipper.
Kimmel’s Prologue to Division
The satirical segment, which aired during the October 15 episode, was prefaced by Kimmel’s sharp critique of Eric Trump’s book on the Tuesday, October 14, broadcast. The 57-year-old late-night host had already lampooned the memoir, even suggesting a more fitting title: “The Shark of the Deal.” Kimmel highlighted the stark division reflected in the book’s Amazon reviews—exclusively polarized between one-star and five-star ratings—as a symptom of a deeply fragmented nation. To “build a bridge and to join hands through literature,” Kimmel quipped, he enlisted a “prominent member of the left” – Trixie Mattel – to present the memoir to a panel of elementary school children, allowing them to form their own, unbiased opinions.
A Queen, a Book, and Candid Critiques
Dressed in her signature vibrant drag, Mattel, who won the third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars in 2018, entered a classroom to greet a group of young students. Her initial playful query, “Do I scare any of you?” was met with confident “No!”s and one child’s heartwarming declaration: “You just look amazing. Why would that be scary?”
Mattel then playfully navigated the democratic process of choosing a book, teasing, “Because this is, after all, a democracy… As of this morning, it’s still a democracy. I’m not sure…” When offered a book by “President Trump,” the children resoundingly declined, leading Mattel to introduce Under Siege as the work of “President Trump’s least favorite son.” She added, with mock solemnity, “Listen, we have to pay respect because this ghost writer worked really hard on this.”
As Mattel began reading passages, the children’s patience quickly wore thin. A particularly self-congratulatory excerpt—”Donald Trump is certainly ‘unconventional.’ He is certainly not ‘politically correct.’ He also has a heart of gold and is the greatest father a son or daughter could ever have”—was promptly interrupted. One student interjected, “Okay, I’m going to stop you there. Instead of skipping this page, we should skip the entire book. No, instead, we should skip the entire storytime and just go straight to lunch because I’m pretty hungry right now.” Another found a passage questioning the former president’s legal challenges—”How is it that my father — who spent over four decades in the public eye — never once received a speeding ticket, triumphed in the 2016 campaign and became President of the United States and was suddenly charged with almost every crime imaginable, and many unimaginable in the aftermath?”—to “doesn’t make any sense.” The children yearned for a picture book, dismissing the memoir’s sparse photo collection as “not that great.” While one child offered a polite “Good job to him for being the president,” another expressed a more visceral, unpublishable opinion, underscoring the segment’s comedic aim.
The Unconventional Book Report
Concluding the reading, Mattel declared a “special science experiment.” Leading the children outdoors, she dramatically fed the copies of Under Siege into a roaring wood chipper, proclaiming to enthusiastic applause, “This might not be a great book, but it’s going to make excellent confetti.” She then humorously added, “Alright, let’s go to happy hour,” as the clip ended, cementing the segment’s satirical critique.
The Broader Battle over Drag Storytime
This controversial yet comedic segment unfolds against a contentious national backdrop. The year 2023 saw a significant surge in efforts to ban drag performers from interacting with children, with Montana specifically enacting a law against “Drag Queen Storytime” events. However, judicial intervention has been mixed, as a Trump-appointed judge notably overturned a similar drag ban in Tennessee the same year. Drag queens, including Mattel, have been vocal critics of the former president. Though not present at a protest against him and Melania Trump at the Kennedy Center in June 2025, Mattel openly shared her candid, deadpan “Really?!” as a message to Donald Trump during a July 2025 appearance on Chicken Shop Date, drawing a humorous parallel between their shared penchant for “back-combed bleached blonde hair and too much bronzer.”
Kimmel, a long-standing critic, had previously skewered Eric Trump, describing him as a “chinless nepo baby” in the October 14 monologue. His biting commentary concluded with a sarcastic commendation: “And I’m sure that if your father ever read this book, which he will not, he would be equally proud of you, oh Chosen One.” The storytime segment served as a potent, visual extension of this ongoing critique, blending political commentary with performance art to spark conversation and amusement alike.
