By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) – U.S. first lady Melania Trump said on Monday it was time for ABC to “take a stand” on Jimmy Kimmel after a monologue the late-night talk show host delivered prior to a shooting near a gathering of journalists and politicians over the weekend.
“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community,” she said in a post on X.
Kimmel, in a parody of the White House Correspondents Dinner that aired last week before the actual event, said: “Mrs. Trump you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
President Donald Trump and the first lady were rushed out of the dinner Saturday after a shooting in the lobby of the Washington Hilton. A suspect identified as Cole Allen charged through a checkpoint and fired at Secret Service agents, wounding one, before he was subdued and arrested.
Disney and ABC did not immediately comment.
In September, the head of the Federal Communications Commission pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Hours before the suspension, FCC head Brendan Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses and said “it’s time for them to step up.” His comments garnered pushback from the entertainment industry and politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who likened his threats to that of an organized crime boss.
In September, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group briefly took Kimmel’s show off the air on their 70 ABC-affiliated stations covering nearly a quarter of U.S. households. Carr wants to make it easier for local broadcasters to preempt national programming.
In November, Trump criticized an ABC News correspondent for asking Saudi Arabia’s crown prince about the 2018 killing of a Washington Post columnist and suggested the commission should move to revoke the broadcast licenses of Disney-owned ABC stations.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Daphne Psaledakis, Katharine Jackson; editing by Michelle Nichols and David Gaffen)
