By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by ABC and parent company Walt Disney, joining his wife Melania Trump in calling out the late-night talk show host for a monologue he delivered prior to a shooting near a gathering of journalists and politicians over the weekend.
Kimmel said last Thursday, in a parody segment on the upcoming White House correspondents’ dinner, that Melania Trump “had a glow like an expectant widow.”
Trump and the first lady were rushed out of the dinner on Saturday after a 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 remove comedy or news programs he dislikes or have been critical of him and pressed regulators to take action to revoke licenses of broadcasters he says are unfair to him. Broadcasters have broad First Amendment rights to make jokes – even ones that are distasteful, experts note.
Earlier on Monday, Melania Trump called Kimmel’s remarks “corrosive” and a symptom of what she described as a political sickness in the United States.
Neither ABC nor Disney immediately responded to requests for comment.
“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.”
She added: “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” the first lady wrote. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy – his words are corrosive and deepens (sic) the political sickness within America.”
Donald Trump, who previously called for Kimmel to be fired, said the comedian’s joke was “something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Daphne Psaledakis and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Michelle Nichols, David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis)
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