‘Not a call to assassination’: Kimmel defends Melania gag after Trumps demand he be fired

Jimmy Kimmel has defended a joke he made about the US first lady having the glow of an “expectant widow” as a “light roast” after Melania and Donald Trump called for the late-night host to be sacked.

The remark was broadcast on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live! days before an alleged assassination attempt on the US president in Washington at the weekend.

The first lady had labelled Kimmel a “coward” and accused him of spreading “hate”, calling on the American broadcaster ABC to take action against him.

“[It was] obviously a joke about their age difference – and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” Kimmel said in his opening monologue, which aired Tuesday afternoon AEDT. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that [Donald Trump] is almost 80, and she’s younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination. And they know that.

“I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence in particular,” he went on. “But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do – and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

“I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday (US time). “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

Trump’s post followed one made by his wife, who wrote on X: “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.

“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.

“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behaviour at the expense of our community.

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy,” she added, describing it as “hateful and violent rhetoric”.

The Trumps were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night (US time) after a shooting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton, which the White House said was the “third major assassination attempt” against Trump in two years.

In his first monologue after the event, Kimmel acknowledged the “traumatic” nature of what the president, first lady and attendees at the dinner went through. But he also emphasised the importance of free speech – pointing out the correspondents’ dinner itself is an event “supporting the First Amendment”.

“Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I, as are all of us because under the First Amendment we have as Americans a right to free speech.”

Kimmel, in a parody of the annual dinner that aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live two days before the actual event, said: “Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Kimmel also appeared to imply that convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein had introduced Trump and his wife, a claim the first lady denied in a rare address this month.

Disney and the ABC did not immediately comment.

In a press briefing on Monday (US time), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Kimmel had “disgustingly” called the first lady an “expectant widow”.

“Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband? And having experienced what I did with the first lady on Saturday night, I can tell you that she was anything but that,” she said.

Leavitt was seated at a long table at the dinner alongside the Trumps when the chaos erupted.

Alleged shooter Cole Allen is accused of sprinting through a security checkpoint and firing at Secret Service agents before he was arrested. One agent was shot in his vest during the crossfire. Allen has been charged with a number of offences including the alleged attempted assassination of the president.

The first lady later appeared alongside her husband as he briefed reporters at the White House after the shooting. He described the incident as “a rather traumatic experience” for her.

Asked during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes whether his wife had been scared, Trump said: “I don’t want to say, and people don’t like having it said that they were scared, but certainly, I mean, who wouldn’t be when you have a situation like that?”

In September, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Hours before the suspension, FCC head Brendan Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licences and said “it’s time for them to step up”. His comments garnered pushback from the entertainment industry and politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Republican senator Ted Cruz, who likened the threats to that of an organised crime boss.

In September, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group briefly took Kimmel’s show off the air on their 70 ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of US households. Carr wants to make it easier for local broadcasters to pre-empt national programming.

In November, Trump criticised an ABC News correspondent for asking Saudi Arabia’s crown prince about the 2018 killing of a Washington Post columnist and suggested the commission should move to revoke the broadcast licences of Disney-owned ABC stations.

with Reuters, Bloomberg

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.