00:02President Trump and the First Lady are calling for ABC to take action against Jimmy Kimmel after his joke about
00:09Melania Trump that is now fueling a broader fight over comedy, politics, and speech.
00:15The backlash centers on a segment from Thursday's Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was a parody of the White House Correspondents'
00:22Dinner.
00:22Kimmel, playing host, joked about the First Lady's appearance.
00:26And of course, our First Lady Melania is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow
00:32like an expectant widow.
00:35The line drew sharp criticism from the White House, especially after a gunman rushed a security checkpoint at the Correspondents'
00:43Dinner two days later and fired gunshots.
00:45On Monday, the First Lady called Kimmel's comments hateful and corrosive and urged ABC to act, writing on X,
00:53Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.
00:57How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?
01:03The president went further, posting on Truth Social that Kimmel should be immediately fired by ABC and its parent company,
01:10Disney.
01:11White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt called the comments disgusting.
01:16Who in their right minds says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?
01:22And having experienced what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night, I can tell you that she was
01:27anything but that.
01:28This kind of rhetoric about the president, the First Lady, and his supporters is completely deranged,
01:33and it's unbelievable that the American people are consuming it night after night after night.
01:38Kimmel addressed the backlash on his show Monday night, rejecting the White House's characterization of the joke.
01:46It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am.
01:51It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that.
01:57I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular,
02:01but I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend,
02:05and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.
02:09And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject.
02:14I do, and I think a great place to start, to dial that back,
02:17would be to have a conversation with your husband about it, because...
02:23The Free Speech Group Committee for the First Amendment also defended him, saying,
02:27In America, satire is not a crime.
02:31The right to mock, to challenge, and yes, to offend those in power, is foundational to democracy.
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