Melania Trump on Monday accused Jimmy Kimmel of deepening what she called the political sickness in America, escalating a fight over the comedian’s remarks days after he mocked the first lady on his show.
Writing on X, Trump said people like Kimmel should not be allowed to enter homes each evening to spread hate. She said he hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him, and added that it is time for ABC to take a stand. Trump said the network’s leadership has enabled Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.
The comments came after Donald Trump also called on Disney and ABC to fire Kimmel immediately. The president said the comedian’s joke was a despicable call to violence, sharpening a dispute that began on Thursday when Kimmel used an alternative White House correspondents’ dinner segment on his show to joke, “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” Kimmel also mocked Melania Trump’s documentary, “Melania,” which faltered at the box office and was not well received by critics.
The backlash is the latest chapter in a fraught history between Kimmel and the Trump administration. Last year, ABC suspended him after the administration threatened to take action against the network over commentary in which Kimmel suggested the killer of Charlie Kirk may have been a Republican. ABC reinstated him less than a week later after a backlash from free speech advocates. The latest clash has landed in a far more volatile atmosphere, with the White House hitting out at Kimmel on Monday and the argument unfolding against a broader national debate over free speech, polarising rhetoric and political violence.
The setting added to the strain. The shooting late on Saturday happened outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, and the fight over Kimmel has only intensified since then. That timing matters because it has turned what began as a comedy skirmish into a test of how far the Trump White House is willing to press a broadcaster over speech, especially after the president and his wife made the highly unusual move of demanding that a television network deplatform a comedian. The First Amendment bars the government from censoring free speech, a point that has framed the backlash around Kimmel’s remarks and the renewed pressure on ABC.
Whether ABC moves now will show whether the network is prepared to absorb another clash with the White House or again retreat after public pressure. For Kimmel, the immediate question is no longer the joke itself but whether the latest round of criticism becomes another brief outrage or a new, longer-running fight over who gets to speak on network television.
