In light of the latest apparent assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, notoriously anti-Trump media figures have seen some of their previous remarks come back to bite them.
For ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, you don’t have to go back very far to find an example of objectionable rhetoric related to the president.
He hosted a mock ceremony prior to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where a gunman opened fire, using his platform to make a host of jokes at Trump’s expense … including one about Melania Trump exuding the glow of “an expectant widow.”
A slew of calls soon came (including both President and First Lady Trump) for ABC to finally boot Kimmel from its airwaves.
Here’s what Politico reported:
“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,” she said in a statement Monday. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”
The first lady accused ABC — the network that airs the show — of protecting him.
“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” she said. “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.”
Donald Trump on Monday also called on ABC and its parent company Disney to fire the comedian over his monologue.
“Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, 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 wrote on Truth Social.
“Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he added.
Plenty of others shared their own criticism of Kimmel’s ongoing war of words with the commander in chief:
Kimmel is no comedian.
He is a vile, hateful partisan front for the radical SDNC using public airwaves to further his cause at the expense of the nation. PAST time to defrock this "comedian" and for the FCC to ban him from over the air TV.— Herr HoppenFlopper (@Bert0000007) April 28, 2026
The only reason ABC can broadcast Jimmy Kimmel’s show is because local ABC affiliates let them.
They have a RIGHT to cancel any ABC programming. Tell them you want Kimmel canceled:@NXSTMediaGroup@WeAreSinclair@scrippsnews@Hearst@COXMG@GrayMediaGTN pic.twitter.com/wnhsmY7EKU
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 27, 2026
Anyone remeber what happened to Roseanne Barr? Didn’t she have free speech? Didn’t she have a successful show?
— MegaMagaMan (@BringitonElon) April 28, 2026
But true to form, Kimmel remained defiant during Monday’s broadcast, seeking to explain away his joke instead of acknowledge that he might be part of the problem.
Fox News provided that update:
“This was Thursday, and there was no big reaction to it until this morning, when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm,” Kimmel said during his monologue. “I said, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at her. So beautiful. This is from the glow. Like an expectant widow, which obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they were together.”
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80, and she’s younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination — and they know that,” he continued. “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular, but I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.”
Here’s a clip of the relevant portion from his monologue:
Jimmy Kimmel refused to apologize for his Melania “widow” joke, instead citing Donald Trump’s history of what he described as hateful and violent rhetoric. pic.twitter.com/T0CI08Kwdm
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 28, 2026
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