Kimmel Tells Melania Trump: Start With Your Husband

Jimmy Kimmel says he's on board with toning down political language—starting, he suggests, with the White House. Responding Monday to Melania Trump's demand that Disney and ABC fire him over a joke he told about her, Kimmel used his Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue to flip her criticism back on the president, per USA Today. The first lady's anger centers on a Thursday segment in which Kimmel, doing an "alternative" roast to Saturday's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, joked to Melania, "You have a glow like an expectant widow," a line he described Monday as a "very light roast joke" about the couple's age gap and on-camera chemistry.

Melania Trump had accused Kimmel on X of using "hateful and violent rhetoric" meant to divide the country, and asked how long ABC would tolerate his "atrocious behavior." Her post came right before President Trump's own call on Truth Social—boosted by the official White House account on X—that Kimmel be "immediately fired." On Monday's show, Kimmel addressed the hubbub, noting to the first lady: "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."

Kimmel also called the controversy "deja vu," referencing a prior suspension over his comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His Thursday remarks gained new attention over the weekend after the attempted assassination of President Trump at Saturday's WHCA event.