ABC Shows No Sign of Caving to Trump Over Kimmel This Time

The White House revived its long-standing feud with Jimmy Kimmel this week, again calling for him to be fired over a joke that offended the president. But unlike the last Kimmel kerfuffle back in September, when ABC briefly yanked him off the air before restoring him amid a widespread backlash, Kimmel’s network appears to be sticking by him this time. Though it’s not clear if that might change as the federal government is reportedly set to begin a review of ABC’s broadcast licenses.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump both took issue with a joke Kimmel made during Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! where the late-night host imagined that he was hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which featured mentalist Oz Pearlman rather than a comedian as it has in years past. In the extended bit Kimmel roasted the president and members of his administration, but it was a crack at Melania that prompted the couple’s anger.

“Our First Lady, Melania, is here. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” he said.

While the joke largely went under the radar following Thursday’s show, it took on new significance following a thwarted attack on the press gala in Washington, D.C., on Saturday as Secret Service agents captured a man who reportedly intended to assassinate the president. Melania, who was whisked to safety alongside her husband, took to social media to demand that ABC fire Kimmel for his “hateful and violent rhetoric.”

“A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. 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,” she wrote on Monday.

The president weighed in later that day, saying that Kimmel is “in no way funny” and calling on him to be kicked off the network. He drew a direct link between the comedian’s words and the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, saying that following Kimmel’s show, a “lunatic” attempted to enter the Washington Hilton ballroom while armed for a “very obvious and sinister reason.”

“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. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

In addition, Semafor reports that the Federal Communications Commission is set to begin a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses with CNN’s Brian Stelter saying the agency could file paperwork backing the audit of the eight licenses as early as Tuesday afternoon. Though each Disney-owned station has its own individual license and any potential action would likely be subject to legal challenges, the additional scrutiny on ABC’s parent company could add to the pressure that the network is already feeling from the federal government.

Kimmel addressed the controversy head-on during his Monday night monologue, quipping to the crowd, “You know how 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?”

Jimmy Kimmel responds to calls from President Trump and the first lady for his firing over a joke he made about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner days before the event.
— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2026-04-28T11:40:10Z

The late-night host explained that he did his own send-up of the typical comedic roast at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during his Thursday night broadcast, using old footage of Trump administration officials for a gag that Kimmel said went largely unnoticed at the time. Kimmel said the “expectant widow” punch line was “obviously 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,” Kimmel said. “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out about gun violence in particular.”

Kimmel then appeared to direct his words toward the First Lady specifically. “I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it,” he said to a round of applause from the audience. “By the way, I also should point out Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you, as am I, as are all of us because, under the First Amendment, we have as Americans the right to free speech.”

During Kimmel’s first clash with the federal government, ABC took the unprecedented step of suspending his show after the network’s broadcast partners vowed to preempt it in reaction to Kimmel’s remarks on conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s murder, in which he appeared to wrongly characterize Kirk’s suspected assassin as a MAGA supporter. Kimmel, who received the public backing of his fellow late-night hosts, entertainment-industry unions, and politicians alike, was back on the air days later amid major backlash, including a widespread boycott of Disney services.

This time around, ABC does not look eager to discipline Kimmel. The network has yet to publicly weigh in on the calls for his ouster, and Kimmel is clearly not shying away from the issue on air. But as the federal government appears poised to review the network’s licenses, the White House continued its public pressure campaign to see the late-night host fired as communications director Stephen Cheung issued a profane call for Kimmel’s dismissal on social media on Tuesday: