On the day that the Trump administration challenged ABC’s station licenses, Jimmy Kimmel had a message for President Donald Trump: The show goes on.
On Tuesday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the comedian did not refer to the news about the network’s parent company, Disney, coming under highly unusual scrutiny from the federal government.
Instead, the comedian used a satirical monologue on King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to the White House to highlight the hypocrisy of a joke the president made about his marriage to first lady Melania Trump.
During an arrival ceremony for the royals, Trump spoke Tuesday about his parents’ 63-year-marriage, turning to Melania and joking, “That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling, I’m sorry.”
Referencing the controversy around comments he made last week about the first lady, Kimmel playfully asked the audience, “Wait a minute, did he just make a joke about his death?”
“Only Donald Trump would demand that I be fired for making a joke about his old age and then a day later, go out and make a joke about his old age,” Kimmel said.
Disney has been standing by Kimmel while the president, his wife and his aides push to get him fired from ABC.
The FCC’s directive to Disney on Tuesday made no mention of Kimmel, and instead suggested that the license challenge is related to an ongoing FCC investigation of Disney’s diversity initiatives, which Trump opposes.
But the order that Disney must start trying to renew its station licenses – years ahead of schedule – is widely seen as an act of retaliation.
Disney responded by saying that it has been operating “in full compliance with FCC rules” and will “show that through the appropriate legal channels.” The company’s statement invoked the First Amendment, signaling it is willing to fight.
Experts say Disney would likely win that fight if the government tries to revoke the eight licenses the company holds. The protracted legal process for licensing could drag on for years.
“I’m glad to see that Disney is going to push back, because it has the First Amendment on its side,” the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront.”
Kimmel defends Melania joke
The controversy has intensified public interest in Kimmel’s anti-Trump commentary. Monday night’s monologue racked up more than four million views in less than 24 hours.
All of the interest stems from Kimmel’s comment on last Thursday’s episode about the first lady looking like an “expectant widow.”
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said during Monday night’s show, in response to the criticism. (Donald Trump is 79; Melania Trump is 56).
In the wake of the shooting outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last Saturday, Trump allies have loudly denounced Kimmel and accused him of wanting to get the president killed, a charge he has rejected.
“It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination,” Kimmel said in Monday’s monologue. “And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.”
Some Trump-boosting podcasters and influencers cheered the FCC’s aggressiveness on Tuesday. But other conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz, objected to the heavy hand of government approach. “It’s not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers made similar statements on Tuesday, with some, like Senator Ed Markey, calling the FCC move “authoritarian censorship.”
Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the action against ABC is part of a broader attempt by Trump to “consolidate control over what Americans see and hear on the radio, television, and social media.”
If Trump gets his way, Jaffer said, “we’ll have only government-aligned media organizations that broadcast only government-approved news and commentary. It would be difficult to imagine an outcome more corrosive to democracy or more offensive to the First Amendment.”