Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel jumped on President Donald Trump‘s joke that his marriage to first lady Melania Trump wouldn’t be as long as his parents’ 63-year union during his show on Tuesday.
Trump delivered remarks at the White House on Tuesday while welcoming King Charles III and Queen Camilla. After saying his mother and father had been together for 63 years, he looked at his wife and said, “That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling, I’m sorry. Just not going to work out that way.”
Kimmel played a clip of Trump’s remarks during his show and then said, “Wait a minute, did he just make a joke about his death?”
“My God. He should be fired for that,” Kimmel continued. “Only Donald Trump would demand I be fired for making a joke about his old age, and then a day later, go out and make a joke about his own old age!”
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The White House did not immediately return a request for comment concerning Kimmel’s joke about Trump’s remarks while welcoming the King.
During a parody skit ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner on his show on Thursday, Kimmel described Melania Trump as an “expectant widow.”
The joke faced scrutiny after a shooting broke out at the actual event on Saturday. The alleged shooter was targeting the president and members of his Cabinet, according to authorities.
Trump and the first lady have called for Kimmel’s firing over the joke.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday called for an early review of Disney’s ABC broadcast licenses, marking a significant escalation in tensions between the media giant and the Trump administration.
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Eight Disney-owned ABC affiliates will have to prove to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that they have been operating in the public interest. The licenses are not up for renewal for several years, but the FCC accelerated their renewal process on the heels of Kimmel’s “expectant widow” joke.
Kimmel defended his joke on Monday’s show amid backlash.
“This was Thursday, and there was no big reaction to it until this morning, when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm,” Kimmel said during his monologue. “I said, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at her. So beautiful. This is from the glow. Like an expectant widow, which obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they were together.”
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“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,” he continued. “I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular, but I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.”
