Both President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump demanded Monday that ABC terminate late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following his controversial comment describing the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”
Kimmel made the contentious remark during last Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” while performing a mock comedy routine supposedly for the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The actual dinner event was interrupted two days later when an armed individual carrying guns and knives attempted to breach the Washington ballroom where the Trumps and numerous political leaders were assembled.
“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” Melania Trump wrote in a social media statement that her husband later repeated.
ABC has not yet responded to requests for comment.
The comedian has consistently made the president a target of his humor and intensified his approach following conflicts with the administration last autumn. ABC previously suspended Kimmel, with several network affiliates removing him from their programming after he made remarks about deceased conservative figure Charlie Kirk – actions that Trump’s FCC chairman Brendan Carr supported. The network and stations eventually reinstated Kimmel.
Wearing formal attire and positioned at a podium Thursday evening, Kimmel performed his satirical routine for the correspondents’ dinner with fabricated “cutaway” shots to the Trumps and other figures using existing video footage.
Addressing Melania in his fake “audience,” he stated: “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
“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,” the president posted on his Truth Social platform. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired” by ABC and its parent company Walt Disney Co., he declared.
The first lady characterized Kimmel’s “hateful and violent rhetoric” as designed to create division in America. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” Melania Trump posted. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described it as part of broader rhetoric from Democrats and certain media figures that “has helped to legitimize this violence.”
“Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?” Leavitt questioned. No evidence suggests Kimmel was making references to violence.
Kimmel’s routine also acknowledged Melania Trump’s Sunday birthday, commenting: “She’s planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does — looking out a window and whispering, ‘What have I done?’”
He additionally remarked: “Before we go any further, Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania. That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein.”
Cole Tomas Allen, the California resident arrested for allegedly attempting to storm the correspondents’ dinner Saturday evening, faces charges of attempted presidential assassination.
