Topline
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night pushed back against criticism of a joke he made last week, where he said First Lady Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow,” saying it was a reference to her age difference with President Donald Trump and not a call for his assassination.
Jimmy Kimmel responded to calls from President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for him to be fired in his monologue on Monday.
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Key Facts
Kimmel began his monologue joking about waking up to the first lady issuing a statement “demanding you be fired from your job,” and described her reaction as a “Twitter vomit storm.”
The late-night host addressed the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner, saying, “no one was hurt, thank goodness,” and a lot of people were “shaken up.”
Addressing the criticism, Kimmel said the “expectant widow” joke was “obviously…about their age difference” and “not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.”
Kimmel said he agrees with the first lady’s comments about rejecting “hateful and violent rhetoric” and added that he thinks a great place to start dialing that back “would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”
Kimmel then quipped that if people believe his joke had an effect on what happened at the dinner, “then maybe someone should look into this psychic lady,” before cutting to footage of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt talking up the president’s planned speech and saying: “there’ll be some shots fired tonight.”
Crucial Quote
Addressing Trump’s push to build the White House ballroom in response to the shooting, Kimmel said: “One thing about Donald Trump, there’s nothing he can’t turn into a real estate opportunity. He immediately turned this into an argument in favor of his ballroom. He wrote, ‘This event would never have happened with the militarily top secret ballroom currently under construction at the White House.’ I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I’m afraid that the top-secret ballroom is no longer top-secret.”
This is a developing story.
