Donald Trump has made essentially the same joke as Jimmy Kimmel, the very gag that prompted the US President to demand the late-night host be fired. During a speech welcoming King Charles to the United States, Trump proudly noted that his parents were married for 63 years before making a quip about his own mortality.
"That's not a record we're going to be able to match, darling," he said to his wife Melania. "I'm sorry, just not going to work out that way." Mrs Trump did not appear to react to the joke. However, it was a strange echo of the joke Kimmel made last week, which provoked the First Lady and others in the Trump administration to demand his dismissal.
Kimmel's Original Joke
The host of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live! made the remark on Thursday's edition of the show. Kimmel later explained that the joke stemmed from the fact that instead of hiring a comedian to poke fun at the President, as is customary at the Correspondents' Dinner, they hired a mind reader to perform close-up magic. He then performed a skit pretending to host the event.
"Of course, our first lady, Melania, is here," he said. He called her "so beautiful" and added: "Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow." Speaking on yesterday's show, Kimmel elaborated: "It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am."
Fallout and Retribution
After events at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday, when a gunman allegedly opened fire in an attempt to assassinate Trump and members of his cabinet, Melania and other Trump allies falsely framed the joke as a call to violence. "His monologue about my family isn't comedy - his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America," Melania said in a statement on Monday morning. Trump followed up on Truth Social, calling the joke a "despicable call to violence" and demanding: "Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."
Today, the Federal Communications Commission, the government body that issues broadcasting licences, announced it was calling in all of ABC's broadcast licences early in apparent retribution over the joke. So far, there is no sign that Disney or ABC will capitulate to Trump's demand to fire Kimmel. The host was suspended for several days last September after he angered MAGA supporters with comments about slain activist Charlie Kirk, but he returned to the airwaves after less than a week.
