Accused by Donald Trump of a "vile call to violence", American comedian Jimmy Kimmel defends a joke about the presidential couple that he made before the correspondents' dinner marked by the intrusion of an armed man. While the star host of the ABC channel refuses to apologize, the American president calls for his immediate dismissal.

Published on: 04/28/2026 - 5:07 p.m. Modified on: 04/28/2026 - 11:44 p.m.

The host most hated by Donald Trump refuses to give in to pressure from the White House. Author of a joke which exasperated the Trump couple, American host Jimmy Kimmel refrained, on Monday April 27, from apologizing and denied having been guilty, as the president accused him, of a "vile call to violence".

Donald Trump demanded that ABC immediately fire the man whose head he had already requested last year. "This really goes too far. Jimmy Kimmel must be immediately fired by Disney and ABC," wrote the president, after comments from the comedian last week who found the First Lady "beaming like a widow in the making."

These remarks took on even more resonance with the White House correspondents' gala on Saturday, marked by the attempted intrusion of a shooter now charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

But Jimmy Kimmel hasn't turned back. “It was obviously a joke about their age difference. And the look of joy that we see on her face every time they are together,” said the host on air, while social networks are amused by the often closed pout of the First Lady when she appears in public with her husband.

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“It was a very nice little joke about the fact that he is almost 80 years old and she is younger than me,” he argued. “But I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience this weekend, like probably every weekend,” he quipped.

“I agree that hateful and violent remarks are something that we should reject,” he insisted, believing that the best way to ban them from public debate “would be to have a conversation” with the tenant of the White House.

White House communications director insults Kimmel

"Jim, you're just a pathetic has-been (...) real trash. We all know what you meant," the Rapid Response 47 account, associated with the White House, reacted on Tuesday on X.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, wrote on

A big star of late night shows, Jimmy Kimmel had already been accused by the American right of politically exploiting the assassination of pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk.

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Owned by Disney, ABC then suspended the host from the air. But faced with outcry and accusations of censorship, the channel brought the comedian back a week after his ouster. A new standoff is emerging since it learned on Tuesday that the American telecoms regulator, the FCC, had ordered the Disney group to submit a license renewal request for the local stations of its ABC channel, anticipating the planned schedule by several years.

Melania Trump, breaking with her usual media reserve, herself criticized the comedian, accusing him on X of carrying "rhetoric of hatred and violence".

For her, “people like Kimmel should not have the opportunity to enter our homes every night to spread hatred.”

With AFP

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