US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have called on ABC and parent company Walt Disney to fire Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night host made a joke about Melania Trump days before a shooting incident near the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Donald Trump said on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel should be “immediately fired” by ABC and Walt Disney.
The controversy began after Kimmel’s Thursday episode of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’, where he delivered a mock White House Correspondents’ Dinner routine.
“Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during the Thursday night sketch.
The president said Kimmel’s remarks were “far beyond the pale” and described the joke as a “despicable call to violence.”
President Trump also said he appreciated that so many people were “incensed by Kimmel’s” remarks, claiming they were a “call to violence”, in a post on Truth Social on Monday afternoon.
“[T]his is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he added.
Trump has previously criticized Kimmel and has repeatedly urged broadcasters to remove comedy and news programs he dislikes or considers unfair to him.
Melania calls joke “distasteful”
The first lady described a Kimmel sketch which aired last Thursday as “hateful and violent”, and the White House urged his network, ABC, to fire the comedian.
On Monday, Melania wrote in a post on X that “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate”.
Jimmy Kimmel clarifies
Delivering his first monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the shooting, the comedian said the joke was “a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s [President Trump] 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 added.
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject, I think a great place to start to dial that back is having a conversation with your husband about it.”
