Jimmy Kimmel pushes with jokes about President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, taking the pressure off the White House and calling for him to be taken off the air.
On his show Monday, May 4, Kimmel took aim at the president’s late-night posting activity on Truth Social, highlighting a photo Trump shared of his wife.
“At 11:04 he posted this even more incredible photo of Melania smiling,” Kimmel said to laughter from the studio audience.
“I don’t know when we last saw that.”
He also addressed Trump’s weekend remarks at a Florida retirement community, where the president claimed Melania “hates” when he dances on stage to the YMCA of the Village People, which Trump called “the gay national anthem.”
“Melania hates when you do things? No way!” Kimmel joked. “What a buzzkill.”
The jokes come as Kimmel finds himself in the midst of a serious escalation with the White House.
The dispute flared up after an April 23 episode in which he described Melania as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”
Two days later, a gunman rushed security at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
The suspected shooter, 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, was subsequently charged with attempted assassination of the president.
Melania, who had attended the dinner, made a rare public statement ahead of the court appearance in which she directly criticized Kimmel.
“People like Kimmel shouldn’t be allowed to come into our homes every night to spread hate,” she wrote on X.
“Enough is enough. It’s time for the ABC to take a stand.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung called Kimmel a “s— person” and said he should be fired “immediately.”
Kimmel defended the original remark, describing it as an “obvious” joke about the age difference between the president, 79, and the first lady, 56.
He also addressed Melania directly, expressing genuine sympathy for the scare at the dinner.
“I’m sorry that you and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that. I really am. Just because nobody was killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary.”
Trump himself weighed in during one Newsmax appearance, calling Kimmel “a lowlife, whether he apologized or not” and saying he “shouldn’t be on television.”
The president had previously threatened to “test” ABC after the network briefly suspended Kimmel in September over remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
ABC and its parent company Disney are facing increasing pressure from the administration.
The Federal Communications Commission last week ordered a review of ABC’s station licenses, citing an investigation into possible violations of federal law and FCC rules at local ABC stations.
