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A political and media dispute has erupted involving United States President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.<\/p>\n
Melania publicly criticised Kimmel on Monday and urged the TV network ABC to take action against him. The president has gone further, calling for Kimmel to be removed from his role altogether.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The controversy centres on remarks Kimmel made during a comedy monologue on Thursday in which he said Melania had \u201ca glow like an expectant widow\u201d, with Trump describing the comments as \u201ca despicable call to violence\u201d.<\/p>\n Here is what you need to know about the controversy:<\/p>\n The dispute began after Kimmel made a joke about the first lady during a segment tied to the White House correspondents\u2019 dinner on Saturday.<\/p>\n At an \u201calternative\u201d White House correspondents\u2019 dinner on his show, Kimmel said: \u201cOur first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel also mocked the first lady\u2019s documentary, Melania, which faltered at the box office and was not well-received\u00a0by critics.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to congratulate you, Madam First Lady, on your huge accomplishment \u2013 the world\u2019s first motionless picture,\u201d Kimmel said.<\/p>\n The controversy comes on the back of a shooting that happened late on Saturday\u00a0when an armed man tried to enter the hall where Trump, the first lady and other members of the White House were in attendance, alongside\u00a0hundreds of journalists.<\/p>\n Following the incident, the video of Kimmel poking fun at Melania caused outrage from some members of the president\u2019s Republican Party.<\/p>\n While the joke played on the perception that the first lady often appears unhappy in public, Trump\u2019s supporters linked the line to the shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople like Kimmel shouldn\u2019t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,\u201d Melania wrote on X.<\/p>\n \u201cEnough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC\u2019s leadership enable Kimmel\u2019s atrocious behaviour at the expense of our community?\u201d<\/p>\n Her husband did not hold back either in his criticism of the late-night comedian. He went further, calling for his dismissal.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel\u2019s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,\u201d the president said on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n \u201cJimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired\u201d by ABC and its parent Walt Disney Co, he added.<\/p>\n The White House also chimed in on the controversy. \u201cWho, in their right mind, says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?\u201d spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said to reporters.<\/p>\n Kimmel responded, saying his remarks had been misconstrued and were not a \u201ccall to assassination\u201d. \u201cIt was a very light roast joke about the fact that he\u2019s almost 80 and she\u2019s younger than I am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Yes, the current controversy is part of a longer pattern of tension between Kimmel and the Trumps.<\/p>\n The president and the late-night host have had a strained relationship for years, largely due to Kimmel\u2019s frequent criticism and mockery of Trump on his show.<\/p>\n Trump has often accused comedians and journalists of bias, and Kimmel has been among those singled out in the past.<\/p>\n Last year, ABC suspended Kimmel after the Trump administration threatened to take action against the network over commentary by the comedian suggesting that the killer of right-wing activist\u00a0Charlie Kirk\u00a0may have been a Republican.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can do this the easy way or the hard way,\u201d Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cThese companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there\u2019s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n After a backlash from free speech advocates, ABC\u00a0reinstated Kimmel\u00a0less than a week later.<\/p>\n In an interview on Sunday, Trump reacted angrily when Norah O\u2019Donnell of CBS News read from the manifesto of the Saturday attack\u2019s suspect, Cole Thomas Allen, during a 60 Minutes interview.<\/p>\n When O\u2019Donnell quoted the attacker\u2019s claims, Trump interrupted and criticised her for airing the remarks.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re a disgrace,\u201d he lashed out at O\u2019Donnell. \u201cI\u2019m not a paedophile. You read that crap from some sick person \u2026 You shouldn\u2019t be reading that on 60 Minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance, whose chairman and CEO David Ellison is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a close Trump ally.<\/p>\n In July 2025, the network paid $16m to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump, who alleged that 60 Minutes had edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in a way that favoured his Democratic presidential rival in the 2024 election.<\/p>\n It has also appointed Kenneth Weinstein, a former Trump administration official, as ombudsman to examine claims of political bias.<\/p>\n In December, Ellison visited the White House, according to media reports, and told Trump that Paramount would carry out \u201csweeping changes\u201d if it succeeded in buying the parent company of CNN.<\/p>\n Paramount Skydance is also locked in an intense battle with streaming giant Netflix to acquire Warner Bros, a move many in the industry see as part of Ellison\u2019s bid to reshape the US media landscape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A political and media dispute has erupted involving United States President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel. Melania publicly criticised Kimmel on Monday and urged the TV network ABC to take action against him. The president has gone further, calling for Kimmel to be removed from his role altogether. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
What did Kimmel say?<\/h2>\n
How did the Trumps react?<\/h2>\n
Have they had past troubles with Kimmel?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"