In a skit that aired on April 23 satirizing the then-upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner, Kimmel pretended to address Melania.
"Our First Lady Melania is here," he said. "Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow."
But after the actual dinner on April 25 was disrupted by the third assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, Melania claimed on social media that the late-night host's "hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country" and said his monologue about her family "isn't comedy."
The president also chimed in, saying Kimmel's joke was "far beyond the pale."
"People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate," the First Lady posted on X.
"Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC," President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Kimmel, whom ABC briefly suspended last year over his controversial remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk, says his joke was about the age difference between the president and First Lady, but Curtis Houck of Media Research Center (MRC) says Kimmel crossed a line.
"This comes down to the substance of what was actually said, having to do with the president's mortality and not policy," he tells AFN.
Critics say Trump's call for Kimmel's firing is beneath the president of the United States, but Houck points out that Kimmel is a big boy.
"I understand the president is somebody in power, but Jimmy Kimmel certainly is as well, and he's definitely poking the bear," Houck says.
In the end, he does not think much will come of this spat.
"It's something the president should feel the right to sound off on," the media watchdog notes. "He says what he wants to say; Disney wants to say what it wants to say, as in nothing, and stand behind Kimmel."
"Unfortunately, fortunately, depending on your point of view, we move on," Houck says.
