Trump again urges ABC to dismiss Kimmel over first lady remark

Don­ald and Mela­nia Trump both called for ABC to fire Jim­my Kim­mel on Mon­day af­ter a joke last week in which the late-night com­ic de­scribed the first la­dy as hav­ing “the glow of an ex­pec­tant wid­ow.”

The re­mark about the pres­i­dent’s wife was part of a rou­tine on Thurs­day’s “Jim­my Kim­mel Live” where the host pre­tend­ed to de­liv­er a com­e­dy rou­tine at the White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ As­so­ci­a­tion din­ner. That event two nights lat­er was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to en­ter the Wash­ing­ton ball­room where the Trumps and much of the na­tion’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship had gath­ered.

“Peo­ple like Kim­mel shouldn’t have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­ter our homes each evening to spread hate,” Mela­nia Trump said in a so­cial me­dia post lat­er echoed by her hus­band.

Kim­mel de­scribed the joke dur­ing his Mon­day night mono­logue as a light roast about the first cou­ple’s age dif­fer­ence and “not, by any stretch of the de­f­i­n­i­tion, a call to as­sas­si­na­tion.”

He said he was sor­ry that the pres­i­dent and every­one at the event went through that trau­mat­ic and scary ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I agree that hate­ful and vi­o­lent rhetoric is some­thing we should re­ject,” Kim­mel said. “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.”

There was no com­ment Mon­day from ABC.

Trump has long been on re­ceiv­ing end of Kim­mel’s rou­tines

Kim­mel has long tar­get­ed the pres­i­dent in his com­e­dy, and he dou­bled down af­ter a run-in with the ad­min­is­tra­tion last fall. Kim­mel was sus­pend­ed by ABC and some of the net­work’s af­fil­i­ates said they would take him off the air fol­low­ing a com­ment made about as­sas­si­nat­ed con­ser­v­a­tive leader Char­lie Kirk, moves en­cour­aged by Trump’s FCC chair­man, Bren­dan Carr. ABC and the sta­tions lat­er brought Kim­mel back.

Up­on his re­turn, Kim­mel said that by say­ing that “many in MA­GA land are work­ing very hard to cap­i­tal­ize on the mur­der of Char­lie Kirk,” he was not try­ing to make light of Kirk’s killing and didn’t want to leave that im­pres­sion. He did not apol­o­gize, how­ev­er, and he crit­i­cized sta­tion own­ers who took him off the air be­fore lat­er re­lent­ing.

Short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent, ABC signed Kim­mel to a one-year con­tract ex­ten­sion that is due to keep him on the air un­til May 2027. His show has aired on the net­work since Jan­u­ary 2003.

His late-night com­peti­tor Stephen Col­bert — an­oth­er fre­quent Trump crit­ic — is see­ing his CBS show end next month.

Dressed in a tux and stand­ing be­hind a podi­um Thurs­day, Kim­mel pre­tend­ed to de­liv­er a com­ic rou­tine for the WH­CA din­ner. His speech had false “cut­aways” to the Trumps and oth­ers, tak­en from video clips.

He not­ed Mela­nia in the “au­di­ence,” say­ing, “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 said on his Truth So­cial plat­form. “Jim­my Kim­mel should be im­me­di­ate­ly fired” by ABC and its par­ent Walt Dis­ney Co., he said.

His wife said Kim­mel’s “hate­ful and vi­o­lent rhetoric” is in­tend­ed to di­vide the coun­try. “A cow­ard, Kim­mel hides be­hind ABC be­cause he knows the net­work will keep run­ning cov­er to pro­tect him,” Mela­nia Trump wrote. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”

White House press sec­re­tary al­so weighs in

White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt said it was part of a cam­paign of rhetoric from De­moc­rats and some in the me­dia 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 said. There was no in­di­ca­tion that Kim­mel was re­fer­ring to vi­o­lence.

The Na­tion­al Re­li­gious Broad­cast­ers as­so­ci­a­tion filed a com­plaint with the Fed­er­al Elec­tions Com­mis­sion, ask­ing the agency to in­ves­ti­gate ABC.

“We’re see­ing a pat­tern of vi­o­lence in this coun­try that didn’t ap­pear overnight,” said Troy Miller, NRB’s pres­i­dent and CEO. “When in­flu­en­tial voic­es joke about death or treat po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents as dis­pos­able, it con­tributes to a cul­ture where vi­o­lence feels think­able to the al­ready un­sta­ble.”

Dur­ing his rou­tine, Kim­mel not­ed Mela­nia Trump’s birth­day Sun­day, say­ing, “She’s plan­ning to cel­e­brate at home the same way she al­ways does — look­ing out a win­dow and whis­per­ing, ‘What have I done?’”

He al­so said: “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 man ar­rest­ed af­ter at­tempt­ing to rush in­to the cor­re­spon­dents’ din­ner on Sat­ur­day, was charged Mon­day with the at­tempt­ed as­sas­si­na­tion of the pres­i­dent.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press cor­re­spon­dent Jesse Be­dayn in Austin, Texas, and Hal­lie Gold­en in Seat­tle con­tributed to this re­port. David Baud­er writes about the in­ter­sec­tion of me­dia and en­ter­tain­ment for the AP.

By DAVID BAUD­ER