(Gray News) — Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is defending the joke that triggered the president and first lady to call for his resignation.
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump both called for ABC to fire Kimmel on Monday after a joke last week in which Kimmel described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”
The remark about the president’s wife was part of a sketch on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” where Kimmel pretended to deliver a comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Two nights later, that event was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the room where the Trumps and many of the nation’s political leaders had gathered.
After the Trumps called for his firing, Kimmel said Monday night that the joke had nothing to do with violence against President Trump, but instead the 24-year age gap between the president and his wife.
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel, 58, said. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence.”
Authorities said the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner had barely begun Saturday evening when Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of California, tried to race past a security barricade armed with a shotgun and a pistol.
He exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents tasked with safeguarding the event.
Allen was injured but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials said.
President Trump was hurried off the stage unharmed as guests ducked for cover under their tables.
Allen was charged Monday with the attempted assassination of President Trump, among other charges.
He was ordered to remain in jail pending additional court hearings and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.
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