President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump on Monday both called for the ABC TV network to fire late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for allegedly inciting violence against the president through a segment on Kimmel’s show that imagined him delivering a comedic address at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD).
Kimmel’s segment, which didn’t call for violence against the president, aired last Thursday. A gunman was arrested during the event this past Saturday evening. Authorities have charged the gunman with attempted assassination, though he didn’t fire any shots and had not entered the main ballroom where the president was seated.
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During Kimmel’s imagined WHCD routine, he joked, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” His joke was likely a comment on rumors of the president’s deteriorating health — even lesbian political pundit Rachel Maddow has commented on the president’s seemingly poor health.
Kimmel’s other jokes claimed that deceased millionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein introduced the president and his wife, that Trump’s legacy will be “breaking wind and passing gas” (euphemisms for farting), and that the president thinks he’s Jesus because when he enters a room, people say, “Christ, he’s back.”
“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” Melania Trump wrote on social media. “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 continued. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. 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.”
The president wrote on social media, “Wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny … made a statement on his Show that is really shocking … A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives.”
“He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason,” the president continued. “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.”
Last September, both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and major ABC affiliate groups Sinclair and Nexstar suspended Kimmel indefinitely after he mocked Donald Trump and MAGA for trying to “score political points” over the murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel resumed broadcasting barely a week later, after widespread outcry and a boycott against ABC’s parent company Disney over the free speech implications of censoring a political satirist.
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