President Trump on Monday called for comedian Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over jokes the late-night host made days before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The president’s call for Kimmel’s firing came hours after first lady Melania Trump, in a rare statement, called the jokes “hateful and violent rhetoric.”
On his show on Thursday, Kimmel said he was taking “a page from the Kid Rock alternative half-time show” and created a mock correspondents’ dinner, which has featured comedians in the past but this year was set to feature mentalist Oz Pearlman. In the skit, Kimmel referred to Melania Trump as having a “glow like an expectant widow.”
Mr. Trump called the joke a “call to violence.”
“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 wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
The first lady had said that ABC should “take a stand” against Kimmel.
“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” Melania Trump posted on social media. “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.”
Melania Trump was sitting next to Mr. Trump on Saturday at the correspondents’ dinner when gunshots rang out and they were evacuated from the ballroom. No one was injured and the suspected gunman, Cole Allen, was taken into custody. He was charged in federal court Monday with three counts, including attempting to assassinate the president.
CBS News has reached out to ABC for comment.
Kimmel was pulled from the air for several nights in September after being criticized by conservatives, including Mr. Trump, for his remarks in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Kimmel had said that America “hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Kimmel did not issue a blanket apology for the remarks, but he did say he could see how they were offensive to some. When he returned to the air on Sept. 23, he said it was “not my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual,” referring to the alleged gunman, who is in custody pending trial.
