Jimmy Kimmel Doesn't Back Down After Melania Trump's Fiery Warning: What He's Saying Now About Her Smile and Marriage

Brooke MigdonTue, May 5, 2026 at 7:24 PM UTC

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Credit: Javier Rojas/PI via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty -

Jimmy Kimmel isn’t backing down from joking about President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, despite warnings from the White House and increasing pressure on his employer, ABC, to fire him

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host poked fun at the couple's marriage during an episode of his show on Monday, May 4

The first lady criticized Kimmel in a rare public statement late last month, calling the comedian's rhetoric "hateful and violent"

Jimmy Kimmel isn’t shying away from joking about President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, despite warnings from the White House.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host knocked one of the president’s late-night posting sprees on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, during a Monday, May 4, episode of his show. Among other posts, Kimmel poked fun at an uncaptioned photo the president shared of his wife.

“At 11:04, he posted this even more unbelievable picture of Melania smiling,” Kimmel, 58, said to laughter and applause. “I don’t know the last time we saw that.”

The comedian also pounced on President Trump's remarks at an event over the weekend, at a retirement community in Florida, where he claimed the first lady “hates” when he dances on stage to "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People, which he called "the gay national anthem."

“Melania hates when you do things? No way!” Kimmel said on Monday. “I can’t believe it. What a buzzkill. Why would she hate that? It’s so much fun. He’s just trying to have fun.”

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host entered his latest feud with the White House after joking during an April 23 episode of his show that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow,” two days before a gunman rushed security at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington.

The suspected shooter, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, was charged in federal court with attempting to assassinate the president. In a rare public statement ahead of Allen’s court appearance, Melania, who had also attended the dinner, criticized Kimmel’s jokes about her family, calling the comedian’s rhetoric “hateful and violent.”

“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” she wrote on X. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”

Jimmy Kimmel on the set of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'Credit: Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty

Kimmel later defended what he called an “obvious” joke.

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“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” he said of the president, 79, and first lady, 56.

Addressing Melania directly, the late-night host said, “I am sorry that you and the president and everyone in that room on Saturday went through that. I really am. Just ’cause no one got killed doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic and scary.”

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During a recent appearance on Newsmax's The Record with Greta Van Susteren, Trump said Kimmel is “a lowlife, whether he apologized or not.”

“He’s a lowlife, he always has been,” the president said. “He shouldn’t be on television.”

President Trump previously threatened to “test” ABC after the network resumed airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! following a brief suspension in September over Kimmel’s remarks on the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

ABC and its parent company, Disney, have faced increasing pressure from the Trump administration to take Kimmel off the air.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, called Kimmel a “s--- human being” for his joke about the Trumps, saying the comedian should be fired “immediately” and “shunned for the rest of his life.”

Without mentioning Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission last week ordered a review of ABC’s station licenses. The Trump-aligned agency wrote in a filing that it had been investigating local ABC stations for possible violations of federal law and the FCC’s own rules, including its prohibition on “unlawful discrimination.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”