Jimmy Kimmel continues to joke about President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, ignoring pressure from the White House and calling for him to be taken off the air.
During his show on Monday, May 4, Kimmel took aim at the president’s late-night posting activity on Truth Social, highlighting a photo Trump shared of his wife.
“At 11:04 a.m., he posted this even more incredible photo of Melania smiling,” Kimmel said to laughter from the studio audience.
“I don’t know the last time we saw that.”
He also echoed Trump’s weekend remarks at a Florida retirement community, where the president claimed Melania “hates” when he dances on stage at the People’s Village YMCA, which Trump called the “gay national anthem.”
“Melania hates it when you do things? No way!” Kimmel joked. “What a buzzkill.”
The jokes come as Kimmel finds himself in the middle of a serious escalation with the White House.
The row erupted after an April 23 episode in which he described Melania as having “the glow of a future widow.”
Two days later, a gunman dispatched security to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
The suspected shooter, Cole Tomas Allen, 31, was later charged with attempting to assassinate the president.
Melania, who attended the dinner, made a rare public statement before the court appearance, directly criticizing Kimmel.
“People like Kimmel should not be allowed to come into our homes every night to spread hate,” she wrote on X.
“Enough is enough. It’s time for ABC to take a stand.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung called Kimmel a “fucking human being” and said he should be fired “immediately.”
Kimmel defended the original remark, describing it as an “obvious” joke about the age gap between the president, 79, and the first lady, 56.
He also spoke directly to Melania, expressing his sincere sympathy for the scare that occurred at the dinner.
“I’m sorry that you, the president and everyone in this room on Saturday experienced this. I truly am. Just because no one was killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary.”
Trump himself spoke during a Newsmax appearance, calling Kimmel a “thug, whether he apologized or not” and saying he “shouldn’t be on TV.”
The president previously threatened to “test” ABC after the network briefly suspended Kimmel in September following remarks about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
ABC and its parent company Disney are facing increasing pressure from the administration.
The Federal Communications Commission last week ordered a review of ABC station licenses, citing an investigation into possible violations of federal law and FCC rules at local ABC stations.
