Jimmy Kimmel defends his Melania Trump ‘expectant widow’ joke after first lady and president call for his firing. What did he say?

Jimmy Kimmel on Monday responded to calls from President Trump and first lady Melania Trump for the ABC late-night host to be fired over a joke he made last week about them attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

“You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and the first lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job — we’ve all been there, right?” Kimmel said at the start of his Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue. “What a day.”

Earlier Monday, Melania Trump posted a statement to X calling for ABC to fire Kimmel for the joke he made ahead of Saturday’s event, which was disrupted by a gunman who ran through a security checkpoint and allegedly opened fire.

The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was arrested and charged with the attempted assassination of President Trump. A Secret Service agent who was wearing a bulletproof vest was struck in the chest by a bullet. The agent was treated at a hospital and released.

What did Kimmel say that sparked backlash?

In March, Trump announced he was attending the dinner for the first time as president. In previous years, a comedian would be hired to deliver a roast. This year, the organizers decided to have a mentalist, Oz Pearlman, as entertainment instead.

On his show on Thursday night, Kimmel parodied Saturday’s dinner in advance, delivering a mock roast. In it, he joked that Melania Trump had a “glow like an expectant widow.”

Kimmel repeated the joke on Monday, saying that it “obviously was a joke about their age difference” — Donald Trump is 79; Melania Trump is 56 — “and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.”

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel continued. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.”

What did Melania Trump say about Kimmel?

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” the first lady wrote in her post on X. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens [sic] 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.”

What did President Trump say in response?

In a post on Truth Social, President Trump characterized Kimmel’s joke as a “despicable call to violence.”

“This is something far beyond the pale,” the president wrote, adding: “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

Representatives for ABC and Disney did not immediately return requests for comment.

What else did Kimmel say?

On Monday night, Kimmel addressed Melania Trump directly, saying he agreed with the first part of her statement.

“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do,” Kimmel said. “And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

He added:

I also should point out Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I, as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have as Americans a right to free speech. But with that said, I am sorry that you and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that. I really am. Just ’cuz no one got killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary. And we should come together and be best.

On his show Tuesday night, Kimmel played a clip of Trump speaking earlier in the day at an event with the first lady, King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the White House.

In his remarks, the president recalled that parents — Mary Anne MacLeod and Fred Trump — were married for 63 years.

“That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling,” he told Melania. “I’m sorry. It’s just not going to work out that way.”

“Wait a minute,” Kimmel said. “Did he just make a joke about his death? My god. He should be fired for that.”

Why Kimmel was suspended last year

In September, Kimmel was temporarily taken off the air following controversial remarks that he made about far-right influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing. Kimmel had questioned the ideological leanings ascribed to Kirk’s accused killer, Tyler Robinson, and accused supporters of President Trump of trying to “score political points” by calling Robinson a left-wing radical.

“The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said.

Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chair, criticized Kimmel’s comments and suggested the FCC could move to revoke ABC affiliate licenses as a way of forcing Disney, the network’s parent company, to punish him.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said at the time.

The suspension sparked a backlash among free speech advocates, and Kimmel returned several days later.

In an emotional 18-minute monologue, Kimmel said, “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”

“I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone,” Kimmel added. “This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution, and it isn’t — ever.”

What’s next?

The FCC is “moving toward a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses,” Semafor reported on Tuesday.

While the timing of the review “wasn’t directly linked to the Kimmel monologue,” it would again put pressure on ABC’s owner as it faces scrutiny from the Trump administration over remarks from its late-night comedian.