The White House has reiterated its demand that ABC dismiss Jimmy Kimmel after he declined to apologise for a joke about First Lady Melania Trump that referred to her as an ‘expectant widow’.
On Tuesday, April 28, the White House’s communications director, Steven Cheung, intensified the criticism, describing the 58-year-old Jimmy Kimmel Live! presenter as a “s— human being” because he would not express regret over the remark.
Cheung’s comments arrived only hours after Kimmel maintained that the line was plainly comedic, not an encouragement of violence or hostility.
In an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner-style segment on the Thursday, April 22 edition of his show, Kimmel quipped that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow.”
Two days later, the joke drew renewed attention following an incident in which a shooter reportedly rushed a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with the aim of killing the President.
“Jimmy Kimmel is a s— human being for: #1. Making a disgusting joke about assassinating the President,” Cheung claimed on X. “#2. Doubling down on that joke instead of doing the decent thing by apologizing. ABC needs to fire him immediately and he should be shunned for the rest of his life.”
Kimmel’s “expectant widow” line was part of a broader set of jabs delivered in a self-styled alternative correspondents’ speech, after he was not invited to the official event this year. Traditionally the dinner features a comedian who lightly roasts the President before the President responds in kind. This year—reported to be Trump’s first time attending the dinner while in office—the organisers opted against a comedian, with mentalist Oz Perlman taking the spotlight instead.
During Kimmel’s separate segment, he also referenced the Epstein files and Trump’s AI-generated Jesus-style images. While the material skewed darker than a typical dinner set, Kimmel continued to frame it as comedy—something Melania and Trump reportedly did not accept.
Melania was the first to publicly condemn Kimmel’s words, urging ABC to “take a stand” and remove him, arguing the joke amounted to inciting violence. Trump later echoed that position in a lengthy Truth Social message that criticised both Kimmel and ABC for broadcasting the segment.
“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,” Trump wrote, while demanding that Kimmel should be ‘immediately fired by Disney and ABC.’
Kimmel, for his part, defended the line by saying it was aimed at their age gap rather than anything sinister.
“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 a call to assassination and they know that I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence in particular.”
While he did not issue an apology for the joke itself, he did offer sympathy in connection with the reported shooting, saying he was sorry that “everyone in that room on Saturday went through that.”