Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said his joke about US first lady Melania Trump had been misconstrued and was not a “call to assassination.”
Kimmel used the opening monologue of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to address comments made last Thursday in a parody segment on the White House correspondents’ dinner.
He said his quip that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow,” referred to the difference in ages of the first lady and her husband, President Donald Trump.
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said.
“It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.”
Earlier in the day, Trump said Kimmel should immediately be fired by ABC and parent company Walt Disney, joining his wife in calling out Kimmel for remarks made prior to a shooting near a weekend gathering of journalists and politicians.
The Trumps were rushed out of Saturday’s dinner after the shooting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton.
A suspect identified as Cole Allen charged through a checkpoint and fired at Secret Service agents, wounding one, before he was subdued and arrested.
Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to drop comedy or news programmes he dislikes or which have been critical of him, pressing regulators to revoke licences of broadcasters he says are unfair to him.
Broadcasters have broad First Amendment rights to make jokes, however, even those that are distasteful, experts say.
Melania Trump called Kimmel’s remarks “corrosive” and a symptom of what she described as a political sickness in the United States.
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,” Kimmel said. “I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”
The comedian played a clip of a CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Sunday interview in which Trump called senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell “a disgrace” for reading an excerpt from the alleged gunman’s writings and seeking a response. The issue poses an early test for Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who took the reins last month.
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