Jimmy Kimmel is not having the President’s latest attacks.
The comedian opened his show on Monday joking that “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?”
Last week, Kimmel made a joke about Melania Trump having the glow like an “expectant widow”.
“This was Thursday. There was no big reaction to it, until this morning, when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm and a call to fire me from our First Lady, Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made again five nights ago. It was a pretend roast,” he said. “It obviously was a joke about their age difference 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. 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, but I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.”
He agreed that hateful and violent rhetoric is something to reject. “I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it,” he added.
Kimmel also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Trump administration given that Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News that there would be “some shots fired” during Trump’s speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
He also pointed out that it was “déjà vu” given that it’s not the first time that the President has called for him to be fired.
Trump took to Truth Social earlier on Monday, calling on Disney-owned ABC to “immediately fire” Kimmel.
“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,” he added.
The first lady railed against Kimmel earlier on Monday, calling on the network to “take a stand” against him. ABC has not yet commented.
Kimmel’s skit on Thursday had him giving his own “alternative” monologue to the Correspondents’ Dinner, with archival clips of reaction shots from the first lady, Trump and others.
Kimmel said, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
This all comes just over six months after Disney’s last run in with the President over late-night.
On September 15, 2025, Kimmel discussed the death of Charlie Kirk in his monologue, noting that the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”.
This led to outrage from the right and was followed by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who warned ABC over the comments and said “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” on a podcast.
This led to station groups Nexstar and Sinclair pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live!, prompting ABC to “indefinitely” pull the show from the air.
Kimmel was told of the decision by then Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Dana Walden, who was subsequently promoted to President and Chief Creative Officer of The Walt Disney Company, after a discussion between Walden and then-CEO Bob Iger.
The decision was widely panned by many including Kimmel’s rival late-night hosts, Democratic politicians, and unions as well as, perhaps most surprisingly, Republican figures including Ted Cruz, who called it “dangerous”
On September 22, Disney made the decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel Live! back on air after “thoughtful conversations” with the comedian.
The next day, after Trump said that he couldn’t believe ABC gave Kimmel his job back, Kimmel was on air and said that “our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television”.
That episode quickly became the second most-watched ever episode of JKL! and was followed by a group of Disney shareholders who queried whether the Disney board “breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the Company and its stockholders”.
A few months later, Kimmel signed a new deal with ABC to continue hosting the show through May 2027.
Deadline understands that this deal was intended to be Kimmel’s last but whether that is the case, remains to be seen, both from the political pressure that he faces, and the fact that he was vacillated wildly over the years when it comes to his contracts.