White House spokesperson believes Jimmy Kimmel “should be shunned for the rest of his life”
Steven Cheung, the communications director for The White House, is the latest high-profile political figure to condemn Jimmy Kimmel.
The criticism of Kimmel relates to a monologue he delivered last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, during which he said that Melania Trump looks like an “expectant widow”.
After both Donald and Melania Trump criticised him, Kimmel addressed their comments on-air on April 27th, and defended his joke, explaining, “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.”
The comedian then clarified that his roast was not intended to be a call for an assassination attempt, in light of the shooter incident at the White House Correspondents Dinner at the weekend, before adding, “And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.”
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,” Kimmel continued, before turning his attention to the president, adding, “I also should point out Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I and as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have as Americans the right to free speech.”
In response to these latest comments, Cheung took to X to claim “Jimmy Kimmel is a shit human being”, before listing his reasons for holding this belief.
Cheung firstly said that Kimmel should be held accountable for allegedly “making a disgusting joke about assassinating the President”, and secondly, he wrote, “Doubling down on that joke instead of doing the decent thing by apologizing.”
The White House employee added, “ABC needs to fire him immediately and he should be shunned for the rest of his life.”
Cheung’s comments come as Semafor reports that the Federal Communications Commission is “moving towards” launching a review of the broadcasting licence of Disney, the parent company of ABC.
What have Donald Trump and Melania Trump said about Jimmy Kimmel?
The First Lady took the X on April 27th to blame the late-night television host for the political divide in the US in the wake of a shooter opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, calling for ABC to fire Kimmel.
Melania began by writing, “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”
She then accused Kimmel of being “a coward” who “hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” before adding, “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.”
Hours later, the president waded into the conversation, writing on Truth Social, “Wow, 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. 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.”
Trump added, “He then stated, ‘Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.’ A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason.”
After labelling Kimmel’s joke as a “despicable call to violence”, he then said the comedian “should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
ABC and Disney have not yet responded to criticism of Kimmel from the administration.
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