Updated April 27, 2026 — President Trump on Monday demanded that comedian Jimmy Kimmel be fired after jokes the late-night host made days before shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. First lady Melania Trump issued a separate statement calling Kimmel’s remarks “hateful and violent rhetoric.”
On his Thursday show, Kimmel staged a mock correspondents’ dinner — which he said was inspired by a Kid Rock halftime sketch — after the year’s official event had been set to include mentalist Oz Pearlman. In the skit, Kimmel quipped that Melania Trump had a “glow like an expectant widow.” Mr. Trump called that line a “call to violence” and wrote on Truth Social that “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
Melania Trump urged ABC to “take a stand,” saying Kimmel’s monologue about her family “isn’t comedy” and accusing him of spreading hate from behind the network. She added that the rhetoric “deepens the political sickness within America.”
The Trumps were attending the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday when gunshots rang out; they were evacuated and no one was injured. The suspected gunman, identified as Cole Allen, was taken into custody and was charged in federal court Monday with three counts, including attempting to assassinate the president.
CBS News has reached out to ABC for comment. The episode comes after Kimmel was briefly pulled from the air last September following conservative criticism of remarks he made after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. When he returned on Sept. 23, Kimmel said it was “not my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual,” and acknowledged that some viewers found his earlier comments offensive.