President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon had wife Melania‘s back and then some, calling on ABC to outright fire Jimmy Kimmel following recent jokes made by the late-night host.
On last Thursday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! —with no comedian (but instead mentalist Oz Pearlman) set to headline this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner—Kimmel seized the chance to deliver the monologue that might have been. Among the barbs aimed at VIP dinner guests (represented in cutaways by archival event clips), he said, “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
Two nights later at the actual White House Correspondents’ dinner attended by the Trumps and other administration officials, Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, Calif., was apprehended after attempting to charge past a security checkpoint while armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives.
President Trump in a new Truth Social post recapped the Kimmel bit, then noted “a day [sic] later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives … for a very obvious and sinister reason.”
With a nod to First Lady Melania Trump’s own call, via X, for ABC to “take a stand” and consider new reprimands for Kimmel, the president wrote,”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.
“Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he asserted.
It was eight months ago that ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live off its schedule indefinitely after FCC chair Brendan Carr pressured affiliates to drop the show over Kimmel appearing to intimate in a monologue that Charlie Kirk’s shooter was MAGA.
After a groundswell of viewer support for Kimmel, and after what were reported to be intense negotiations between Kimmel, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden, Kimmel was ultimately reinstated. What’s more, ABC and Kimmel later announced a one-year contract extension (though that deal reportedly had been hammered out over the summer).
But as of March 18, The Walt Disney Co. has a new CEO, Josh D’Amaro—to whom Melania perhaps was appealing in her post to X.
“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand,” the First Lady said. “How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”
LateNighter has reached out to Disney-ABC for comment on the Trumps’ social media posts.
Related: Here’s What Jimmy Kimmel Said About Trump Family in His Faux WHCD Roast
Kimmel has every right to speak out against you! And you have every right to shut the fuck up and take it, like every other president has done!
Sorry sweetheart. Broadcast Television is regulated. Broadcasters have a responsibility to reach broad-based audiences without threats, or fear. You have no concept of what you are talking about. Please, use the LAZY and boring talking point of: “Freedom of Speech.” Sorry, that plane has already flown.
You are one ‘sorry’ individual.
Actually, “John,” the sitting president trying to silence Kimmel by pressuring ABC to fire him is the very definition of the threats and fear the First Amendment is meant to defend against. And saying that “broadcasters have a responsibility to reach broad-based audiences” is amusing you’re advocating for views shared by a sizable amount of those audiences to be suppressed.
But I wonder what the real John Dickerson would say….because you’re clearly not him.
You’re the one that doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Kimmel made jokes about your hero Drumpf that were both funny and on point, which is well protected by the First Amendment! And your hero Drumpf responded by trying to have him fired, because he’s a thin skinned loser that doesn’t like being mocked or made fun of!
And so are you, precious! Grow the fuck up! You crybabies are no alphas!
Jimmy was spot on hilarious!!!!
Love him!!!
Trump is absolutely past his do not sell date. He is rotting away in front of our eyes.
He can’t focus, he can’t remember his lies from one hour to the next, he is raving violent threats against so many nations! In dementia care hospice work, professionals recognize these signs.
He is not a healthy old man.
To complain “Kimmel’s despicable call to violence” was the expectant widow joke, he assumes he will live forever! He surrounds himself with obedient liars, so has probably been told that.
Melanomia has actually embarrassed him frequently in the last couple years, I am surprised she is still around actually. Kirks widow would do the job in a heartbeat.
Did you even vote?
Well…do ya?
I bet this will be handled differently now that DISNEY has new Leadership. Something happened to Jimmy. His wife’s TDS has taken both him and his once great show over. Hey, it was fun while it lasted.
Jimmy Kimmel grew up! You’d be well to do likewise!
Fire Trump, talks with both sides of his face. Trump is disgustingly sex offender.