US President Donald Trump said yesterday that Jimmy Kimmel should immediately be fired by ABC and parent company Walt Disney, joining his wife Melania Trump in calling out the late-night talk show host for a monologue he delivered prior to a shooting near a gathering of journalists and politicians over the weekend.
Kimmel said on Thursday, in a parody segment on the upcoming White House correspondents’ dinner, that Melania Trump ‘had a glow like an expectant widow’.
Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to remove comedy or news programmes he dislikes or that have been critical of him and pressed regulators to take action to revoke licences of broadcasters he says are unfair to him. Broadcasters have broad First Amendment rights to make jokes – even ones that are distasteful, experts note.
Earlier yesterday, Melania Trump called Kimmel’s remarks ‘corrosive’ and a symptom of what she described as a political sickness in the US.
Neither ABC nor Disney immediately responded to requests for comment. The issue poses an early test for Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who took the reins last month.
“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behaviour at the expense of our community,” Melania Trump said in a post on X.
&uuid=(email))