Jimmy Kimmel is pushing back hard after both Donald Trump and Melania Trump called for him to be fired from ABC over a joke he made about the first lady days before an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
On Monday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the host opened his monologue by addressing the controversy head-on, telling his audience the bit was about the couple’s age gap and nothing more. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that,” Kimmel said on air, according to NBC News. “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence.”
The uproar stems from a Thursday episode in which Kimmel staged a mock version of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. During the bit, he looked into the camera and said, “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” The line was widely understood as a dig at the age difference between Trump, who is 79, and Melania, who is 56. Two nights later, armed suspect Cole Tomas Allen, 31, was charged with attempting to assassinate the president after rushing toward the dinner’s security checkpoint.
Trump and Melania pile on
Once the shooting occurred, Trump’s allies moved quickly to reframe the joke as something darker. The first lady posted on social media Monday morning, saying “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” per CNN.
She also called on ABC to “take a stand.” The president followed hours later on Truth Social, calling the remark a “despicable call to violence” and demanding that “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” He also took shots at Kimmel’s ratings and accused him of airing a “fake video” of Melania and their son Barron.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt amplified the criticism during a Monday briefing, calling Kimmel’s comments “completely deranged” and saying that type of rhetoric “has led crazy people to believe crazy things.”
Neither ABC nor Disney responded to requests for comment. But Disney’s business-as-usual approach, letting Kimmel’s show air without interruption, signaled the company was not planning to act on Trump’s demands.
Kimmel turns it back on the Trumps
Kimmel said he sympathized with anyone shaken by the shooting, calling it “traumatic and scary.” But he wasn’t backing down on his right to make the jokes. “As Americans, we have a right to free speech,” he said. He also took a swipe at the hypocrisy angle, agreeing that violent rhetoric should be dialed back while suggesting Melania might want to “have a conversation” with her husband about it first.
This isn’t the first time Trump and Kimmel have clashed this way. Last September, ABC briefly suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Kimmel made a remark following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The backlash to that suspension was intense, and the show was restored less than a week later. This time, the pressure lands on new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who took over from Bob Iger just six weeks ago. It’s his first major Trump test, and so far, the network appears to be holding firm.
Trump’s long and complicated relationship with religion has also come under scrutiny during his second term. He recently read scripture days after angering Christians online and was criticized again after sharing a second AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus, moves that drew wide attention and backlash.
