Jimmy Kimmel is refusing to apologize for the horrific comments he made about First Lady Melania Trump and President Trump, claiming that the Trump family is being dishonest in attacking him for joking about Trump being assassinated and Melania being happy with such an outcome, an utterly horrific thing to say.
As background, Kimmel kicked off the furor when, shortly before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night at which President Trump and others were attacked by a deranged gunman, he joked that Melania has the “glow” of an “expectant widow.”
In response to that, Melania fired back on X, saying, “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. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. 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.”
President Trump added, “I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Kimmel refused to apologize or back down. Instead, during his monologue on Monday night, he joked about the whole thing, saying, “You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and the first lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job? We’ve all been there, right?”
Continuing, Kimmel pretended that he wasn’t joking about the assassination of the president despite the fact that Trump has now faced three assassination attempts, saying, “There was no big reaction to it until this morning, when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm and a call to fire me from our first lady.”
He added, Obviously, it was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not — by any stretch of the definition — a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, in particular.”
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Continuing, he said, “But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. 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. Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I. Because under the First Amendment, we have, as Americans, a right to free speech.”
He then said, h. “I am sorry that [Melania] and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that — that I really am. Just because no one got killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary, and we should come together. We really should. But if you want us to believe that a joke I made three days before this dinner had any effect on anything that happened, well then, maybe someone should look into this psychic lady too.”
Watch him here: