First lady Melania Trump unleashed a blistering attack on Jimmy Kimmel on Monday, April 27, 2026, demanding that ABC fire the late-night host and accusing him of fueling the political violence that erupted at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner over the weekend.

In a pointed post on X, the first lady branded Kimmel a “coward” and said his on-air jokes about her family represented “hateful and violent rhetoric” that has poisoned American public life. President Trump amplified the attack hours later on Truth Social, calling for Kimmel’s immediate dismissal by ABC and its parent company, The Walt Disney Co.

The Trumps’ fury traces to a Thursday segment on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — a parody of the correspondents’ dinner — in which Kimmel quipped that the first lady had the “glow of an expectant widow.” The monologue, which included pointed references to the Trumps’ connections to Jeffrey Epstein, aired two days before a gunman opened fire near the security screening area of the Washington Hilton hotel where the actual dinner was taking place.

A Dinner Cut Short by Gunfire

Saturday’s event was abruptly halted after the gunman, a hotel guest, descended from a 10th-floor room and charged through a security checkpoint with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives. He exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents near the lobby and was apprehended short of the ballroom. It was the first time President Trump had attended a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner as a sitting president. Inside, guests dove under tables as agents hustled the president and first lady off the stage and out of the room.

Federal prosecutors on Monday charged the suspect, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, California, with three criminal counts, including attempting to assassinate President Trump. According to investigators, Allen sent a manifesto to family members stating that he intended to target Trump administration officials, “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”

After returning to the White House, Trump praised law enforcement and spoke positively about the “spirit” between his administration and the press in the aftermath of the shooting. By Monday, that measured tone had vanished, replaced by a campaign to pin blame for the rise in political violence on Kimmel and other administration critics.

Melania’s Direct Appeal to ABC

The first lady’s post, reported by The Guardian, took aim not only at Kimmel but at the network that airs his program.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” Melania Trump wrote. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepen the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

She accused ABC of “running cover” for the host and demanded the network’s leadership intervene. “Enough is enough,” she wrote. “It is time for ABC to take a stand.”

Trump followed with his own broadside, calling the skit “really shocking” and drawing a direct line between Kimmel’s comments and the weekend shooting. “I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,” the president wrote. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the line of attack at a Monday briefing, asking, “Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?”

A Familiar Clash With Disney

The latest furor lands on the desk of new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger last month, and it revives a confrontation the company thought it had resolved. Seven months ago, ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr publicly pressured the network over Kimmel’s commentary about the reaction to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025.

That suspension drew a torrent of criticism, with free-speech advocates accusing Carr of using federal regulatory power to chill broadcast speech. ABC, according to NBC News, returned Kimmel to the air less than a week later, and in early December the host signed a one-year extension with the network.

Kimmel had drawn intense backlash for suggesting that the suspect in Kirk’s killing was aligned with the political right, before later expressing regret and saying it was never his intention to make light of a young man’s murder. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox was among those who weighed in at the time, calling the killing a “political assassination.”

Silence From Kimmel, Pressure From Allies

As of Monday, Kimmel had not publicly addressed the weekend incident or the Trumps’ demand that he be fired. ABC, Disney and the host’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Kimmel is a familiar target of the president’s ire, and conservative voices quickly amplified Monday’s calls for his ouster. “I am so deeply sick of Jimmy Kimmel and the hate he spreads in the world,” former “The View” co-host Meghan McCain wrote on X.

Critics of the administration, however, noted that the president himself has a long record of incendiary language, including urging supporters to “knock the crap out” of protesters at a 2016 rally and exhorting them to “fight like hell” before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Whether Disney executives view the latest controversy as a manageable flare-up or an existential threat to one of the network’s signature franchises will likely determine Kimmel’s fate in the coming days.