The Trump administration renewed its fight with late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel on Monday, calling for Kimmel to be fired for a joke he made last week about first lady Melania Trump.
On Thursday — two days before a gunman was stopped at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner event in Washington, attended by President Trump and the first lady — Kimmel made a joke saying the first lady looked like an “expectant widow.”
Kimmel’s show was pulled off ABC for a week last year following criticism from the White House over comments he made about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
On Monday, President Trump took to social media to call for Kimmel’s ouster following his most recent remarks.
“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,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
Messages left with representatives for Walt Disney and ABC weren’t immediately returned.
In his show’s opening monologue on Thursday night, Kimmel pretended he was speaking to the crowd at the correspondents’ dinner, saying: “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
At the actual dinner on Saturday night, the president, first lady and Trump administration officials were ushered out of the event by the Secret Service after a gunman was stopped in the Washington Hilton hotel’s lobby.
Earlier on Monday, the first lady lashed out at Kimmel on social media, saying his “monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”
“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she posted. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”
Last year, Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission, put pressure on ABC to take action against Kimmel following the comments he made about Kirk.
That led to TV-station owner Nexstar Media Group — which was in the middle of a legally thorny merger that required FCC approval — to announce it was pulling Kimmel’s show off its channels. Fellow station owner Sinclair followed, and ABC then moved to suspend Kimmel’s show for a week.
That led to criticism and claims of censorship. Eventually, ABC and the station groups changed course and brought Kimmel back on air after a week-long suspension.
Last month, the Trump administration signed off on Nexstar’s $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, although the deal has since been stalled in court.
Late-night hosts have faced broader scrutiny under the Trump administration. The FCC earlier this year issued “guidance” around television shows “motivated by partisan purposes.” These were said to usher in a potential re-examination of late-night TV’s longstanding exemption to rules requiring equal time for candidates of different political parties.
