(Corrects story to fix typo in paragraph 3.)
By David Shepardson and Dawn Chmielewski
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) – Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday his joke about U.S. first lady Melania Trump had been misconstrued and was not a “call to assassination.”
Kimmel used the opening monologue of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to address comments made last Thursday in a parody segment on the White House correspondents’ dinner.
He said his quip that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow,” referred to the difference in ages of the first lady and her husband, President Donald Trump.
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.”
Earlier in the day, Trump said Kimmel should immediately be fired by ABC and parent company Walt Disney, joining his wife in calling out Kimmel for remarks made prior to a shooting near a weekend gathering of journalists and politicians.
The Trumps were rushed out of Saturday’s dinner after the shooting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton.
A suspect identified as Cole Allen charged through a checkpoint and fired at Secret Service agents, wounding one, before he was subdued and arrested.
Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to drop comedy or news programs he dislikes or which have been critical of him, pressing regulators to revoke licenses of broadcasters he says are unfair to him.
Broadcasters have broad First Amendment rights to make jokes, however, even those that are distasteful, experts say.
Melania Trump called Kimmel’s remarks “corrosive” and a symptom of what she described as a political sickness in the United States.
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,” Kimmel said. “I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”
The comedian played a clip of a CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Sunday interview in which Trump called senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell “a disgrace” for reading an excerpt from the alleged gunman’s writings and seeking a response.
The issue poses an early test for Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who took the reins last month.
“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,” Melania Trump said in a post on X. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”
Donald Trump, who previously called for Kimmel to be removed from the air, said the comedian’s joke was “something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
Kimmel expressed sympathy for Melania Trump, and those who attended Saturday’s event, for enduring the traumatic incident. But he rejected the notion that a joke, delivered three days earlier, “had any effect on anything that happened.”
Reaction elsewhere to the remarks was mixed.
“Disney and ABC are extremely lucky that Trump wasn’t assassinated on Saturday two days after Jimmy Kimmel made the joke about an ‘expectant widow,'” said Todd Doten, 57, a street vendor on Hollywood Boulevard.
“If that had happened, there would be a backlash against them the likes (of which) they’ve never seen before.”
Dee Thompson, a 64-year-old from North Carolina, worried about the free speech risks if Kimmel should lose his job.
“They’re going to take away freedom of speech for a lot of comedians, you know,” Thompson added.
FCC PRESSURE ON BROADCASTERS
In September of last year, the head of the Federal Communications Commission pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air.
ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Hours before the suspension, FCC head Brendan Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses and said, “it’s time for them to step up.”
His comments drew pushback from the entertainment industry and politicians on both stripes, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who likened Carr’s threats to those of an organized-crime boss.
Trump, the subject of two prior assassination attempts, has repeatedly attacked the media and threatened broadcast licenses. Trump had praised Kimmel’s suspension in September.
In November, Trump criticized an ABC News correspondent for asking Saudi Arabia’s crown prince about the 2018 killing of a Washington Post columnist and suggested the FCC should move to revoke the broadcast licenses of Disney-owned ABC stations.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Daphne Psaledakis and Katharine Jackson in Washington, with additional reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Rollo Ross in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Lincoln Feast and Clarence Fernandez)
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