Jimmy Kimmel pushed back Monday against calls from Donald and Melania Trump for his firing, insisting his “expectant widow” joke about the first lady was a harmless roast about the couple’s age difference and not an incitement to violence, despite the quip going viral after a foiled assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The late-night host addressed the controversy head-on during the opening monologue of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, defending the pre-event remark that drew sharp criticism from the Trumps in the wake of the April 25 shooting incident at the Washington Hilton.
“Sometimes, you wake up in the morning and the first lady puts out a statement demanding you be fired from your job,” Kimmel said. “We’ve all been there, right?”
Jimmy Kimmel addresses calls for him to be fired by First Lady Melania and President Donald Trump, claims his “expectant widow joke” was about their age difference, not assassination.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 28, 2026
Regardless of his intent, he was joking about the President dying and Melania being happy about… pic.twitter.com/2FQ0bOjwGN
He described the joke as “a pretend roast,” recounting: “I said, ‘Our First Lady Melania is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.’ It was a joke about their age difference, and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination. And they know that.”
Kimmel emphasized his long-standing public opposition to gun violence, adding that the first lady “had a stressful experience over the weekend” and expressing empathy for those who were in the room during the security scare.
The original joke, delivered before the dinner, resurfaced and intensified after Secret Service agents stopped suspect Cole Thomas Allen at a checkpoint outside the event. Trump and Melania Trump responded by calling for Kimmel’s termination from ABC, viewing the timing and wording as inappropriate or inflammatory.