Jimmy Kimmel isn't backing down after President Donald Trump demanded he be fired. The late night host addressed a controversial joke about Melania Trump looking like an "expectant widow."
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The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host said he wasn't trying to incite violence. Days after the joke, a gunman attacked the White House Correspondents' Dinner. That cast the joke, which appeared in a parody of the event, in a controversial light.
Kimmel said that it was "obviously 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," he said. "It was not by any stretch a call to assassination, and they know that I've been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence in particular."
Jimmy Kimmel Speaks Out
The comedian then addressed the First Lady directly in his monologue.
"I am sorry that you and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that. I really am," Kimmel said, speaking directly to Melania. "Just because no one got killed doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic and scary. And we should come together and be the best. We really should."
However, Kimmel denies that his joke played any role in the violence of the event. He said the joke itself was harmless.
"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, maybe you should look into this psychic lady, too," Kimmel said.
Meanwhile, after the shooting, Trump took to Truth Social to call out the late night host. In a post on the platform, he called for Kimmel to be fired immediately.
Trump wrote, "He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren't, and never would be. He then stated, 'Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.'"
The president also 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."
