President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Saturday, April 25, 2026.Yuri Gripas/POOL/Zuma
First Lady Melania Trump kicked off the backlash against Jimmy Kimmel on Monday.
Donald Trump and Karoline Leavitt soon followed.
Then came the Trump administration’s army of right-wing supporters.
In a skit that aired last Thursday, the talk show host made fun of Trump, his family, and his supporters in a parody version of the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner, during which it’s traditional to roast the politicians in attendance.
In the bit, Kimmel took aim at the president over his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Melania Trump’s physical appearance and widely-panned documentary from this past January, and Stephen Miller’s white supremacism.
“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” the first lady posted on X in a rare public statement on Monday morning. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”
The president escalated his wife’s condemnation, posting on Truth Social three hours later, insinuating a connection between Kimmel’s remarks and the shooting at Saturday’s dinner and heaping pressure—for the second time since taking office—on ABC and Disney, who owns the network, to fire Kimmel.
“Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking,” Donald Trump wrote. “A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner.”
At Monday’s White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt similarly tied Kimmel’s jokes to the shooting: “We as Americans must recommit ourselves to resolving our differences peacefully.”
“The deranged lies and smears against the president have led crazy people to believe crazy things, and they are inspired to commit violence because of those words,” Leavitt continued. “It is not just the media, it is the entire Democratic Party.”
Several far-right content creators also weighed in, including MAGA influencer Benny Johnson, who wrote on X that the host had wished “death on President Trump and his supporters time and time again.” (Johnson’s claim came without evidence or reference to specific remarks of Kimmel’s, and does not appear to be tethered in fact, however remotely.)
Last year, the right pressured ABC to drop Jimmy Kimmel after the host argued that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points from the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
But comedy is legal again, right? And free speech is good and shouldn’t be subject to federal censorship, and hate speech isn’t acceptable?
