Melania Trump urges ABC to 'take a stand' against Jimmy Kimmel after 'expectant widow' remark

Melania Trump and Donald Trump at the Washington Hilton seconds after a would-be assassin fired shots.

First lady Melania Trump on Monday called on ABC to punish late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after a bit he did on the show last week declaring she looked like "an expectant" widow went viral in the wake of the assassination attempt against President Trump Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. President Trump said the late-night host should be "immediately fired."

The first lady took issue with a so-called comedy bit from Thursday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in which the host pretended to be the emcee of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, essentially fantasizing about how he would handle the hosting duties.

"Our first lady, Melania, is here," Kimmel said during the bit, as show producers cut away to video of the first lady sitting in the audience, making it look like she was watching him host the event. "Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."

"Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy -- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America," Melania Trump, who was seated next to her husband when shots rang out at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night, said in a post on X.

She added that Kimmel was a "coward" and concluded by saying, "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 appeared to be referencing Kimmel's incendiary remarks in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination last September, for which he was briefly suspended. President Trump echoed those sentiments on Monday afternoon and directly called for ABC to dismiss Kimmel in a post on Truth Social. "Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC," the president said.

Kimmel's remarks following Kirk's assassination have made him wildly unpopular among conservative-leaning Americans. Kimmel also raised eyebrows when he celebrated violent attacks on Tesla dealerships in 2025 as leftist extremists protested Elon Musk's involvement with DOGE. More recently it was revealed that Kimmel hosted a pricey event to raise money for congressional Democrats. 

Earlier this year, a poll of Rubin Recap readers showed Dave's audience considers Kimmel to be the worst leftist clown on TV today. Click here to sign up for Dave's free newsletter, The Rubin Recap.

Below is a clip of Kimmel pretending to be the emcee of the event, which in light of Saturday's violence, has drawn a chorus of criticism on social media.