Jimmy Kimmel Brings America to Tears With 'Scary Story' About Newborn Son's Heart Surgery (Video)

“I have a story to tell about something that happened to our family last week,” he said during his monologue (above) as he choked up. “I'm sorry. You know, I try not to get emotional, but it was a scary story. And before I go into it, I want you to know it has a happy ending, okay? So when I'm telling this, don't get too upset. Leave that to me."

The ABC late-night host went on to explain that his newborn, Billy, was diagnosed with a heart disease hours after his birth and the condition required surgery.

"It's hard to explain, but basically the pulmonary valve was completely blocked and he has a hole in the wall between the left and right sides of his heart," an emotional Kimmel said.

A surgeon at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles ended up opening Billy's heart and "fixed one of the two defects with his heart."

"He went in there with a scalpel and he performed some kind of magic that I couldn't even begin to explain. He opened the valve and the operation was a success," Kimmel said. "It was the longest three hours of my life."

Of course, the extremely personal and heart wrenching story didn't prevent Kimmmel from cracking jokes along the way. "We had atheists praying for us," Kimmel said while thanking his friends, family and colleagues for being so supportive during the crisis.

"I hate to say it, but even that son of a bitch Matt Damon sent flowers," Kimmel said, referring to his longtime faux rivalry with his movie star frenemy.

Then his passionate monologue turned political, as he called out Trump for trying to cut federal funding for healthcare.

"President Trump last month proposed a $6 billion cut in funding to the National Institute of Health, and thank God our congressmen made a deal last night to not go along with that," Kimmel said. They actually increased funding by $2 billion, and I applaud them for doing that, because more than 40 percent of the people who would have been affected by those cuts to the National Institute of Health are children."

"We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world, but until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at all," he continued. "Before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you would never be able to get health insurance because you had a preexisting condition. You were born with a preexisting condition, and if your parents didn't have medical insurance, you might not even live long enough to get denied because of a preexisting condition."

He concluded by making a plea to lawmakers for sensible healthcare reform.

“If your baby is going to die, and it doesn't have to, it shouldn't matter how much money you make. I think that's something now, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, or something else, we all agree on that, right?” Kimmel said. "Whatever your party, whatever you believe, whoever you support, we need to make sure that people who are supposed to represent us — and people who are meeting about this right now in Washington — understand that very clearly. Let's stop with the nonsense. This isn't football, there are no teams. We are the team, it's the United States. Don't let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants. We need to take care of each other.”