US first lady Melania Trump has lashed out at Jimmy Kimmel and told American broadcaster ABC to “take a stand” after the late-night talk show host remarked she had the glow of an “expectant widow” in a monologue delivered before a shooting incident in Washington.
“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,” the first lady said in a post on X.
US President Donald Trump and the first lady were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night (US time) after a shooting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton.
Kimmel, in a parody of the dinner that aired last week before the actual event, said: “Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
Kimmel also implied that convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had introduced Trump and his wife, a claim the first lady denied in a rare address earlier this month.
The jokes were seen to be in poor taste in light of the attempted assassination at the dinner two nights later. Disney and the ABC did not immediately comment.
A suspect identified as Cole Allen charged through a checkpoint and fired at Secret Service agents, wounding one, before he was subdued and arrested.
The first lady later appeared alongside her husband as he briefed reporters at the White House on Saturday night (US time). He described the incident as “a rather traumatic experience” for her.
Asked during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday whether his wife had been scared, the president said: “I don’t want to say, and people don’t like having it said that they were scared, but certainly, I mean, who wouldn’t be when you have a situation like that?”
In September, the head of the Federal Communications Commission pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Hours before the suspension, FCC head Brendan Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses and said “it’s time for them to step up”. His comments garnered pushback from the entertainment industry and politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who likened his threats to that of an organised crime boss.
In September, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group briefly took Kimmel’s show off the air on their 70
ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of US households. Carr wants to make it easier for local broadcasters to preempt national programming.
In November, Trump criticised an ABC News correspondent for asking Saudi Arabia’s crown prince about the 2018 killing of a Washington Post columnist and suggested the commission should move to revoke the broadcast licenses of Disney-owned ABC stations.
Reuters, Bloomberg
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