Jimmy Kimmel's Joke About Melania Happened Days Before the Assassination Attempt

Both Melania Trump and her husband, President Donald Trump, have taken time over the past few days to call for the firing of Jimmy Kimmel. This is not the first time that Kimmel has come under fire during the second Trump administration, although this time, it's for comments he made about the president and his wife directly.

Following the news that both of them had called on Kimmel to be fired many naturally wondered what Kimmel said that caused this outrage. Here's what we know.

In a series of jokes on Thursday, April 23, days before a shooter infiltrated the White House Correspondents' Dinner in what appeared to be an assassination attempt, Kimmel said that Melania had a "glow like an expectant widow." The joke was part of a broader mock Correspondents' Dinner designed to imitate what the dinner used to be like when a comedian would host and tell jokes about the president and his family.

During the string of jokes, Kimmel also mocked Trump's claim that an image he posted in which he was made to look like Jesus was actually him as a doctor.

“By the way, in the unfortunate event that our president has a medical emergency tonight, do we have a doctor in the house — oh, I’m sorry. I mean, do we have a Jesus in the house? I always confuse them, too," he said. Clearly, then, these jokes were not about an assassination attempt, but were instead about the president's health.

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, though, both Melania and President Trump appear to be using them to try to get Kimmel kicked off the air (again).

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” Melania wrote in a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) on April 27.

“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?” she added.

Although we don't know much about the state of their marriage, President Trump had his wife's back on this one. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he said in a post on Truth Social, adding that his joke was a "despicable call to violence."

In context, it's quite clear that Kimmel was not calling on anyone to commit an act of violence and was instead talking about the president's health.

It's noteworthy, too, that Kimmel's speech is clearly protected by the First Amendment, and that this is not the first time he has been threatened by the Trump administration. Last time, he managed to keep his show on the air, although this story is definitely not over.