Overview
- Critics resurfaced a Tuesday monologue in which Jimmy Kimmel joked Rudy Giuliani had “rose from the grave” after Giuliani was hospitalized in critical but stable condition on Sunday, intensifying backlash already aimed at the ABC host.
- The controversy began with Kimmel’s Thursday quip that Melania Trump had the glow of an “expectant widow,” delivered two days before a gunman opened fire near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday in what prosecutors call an attempt to assassinate President Trump.
- Cole Tomas Allen, 31, was charged with attempting to assassinate the president and firearms crimes after rushing a checkpoint with a shotgun, pistol, knives and ample ammunition, prompting evacuations of senior officials at the Washington Hilton.
- President Trump and the first lady called for ABC to fire Kimmel, who has stayed on the air and said the line was a light age joke and not a call to violence, while the network has not announced discipline.
- The FCC has opened an expedited review of Disney-owned ABC station licenses and set a May 28 early renewal filing date, drawing a sharp First Amendment rebuke from Democratic commissioner Anna M. Gomez and denials of White House influence from Chairman Brendan Carr, as figures like Joe Rogan, George Clooney and Jon Stewart argue the backlash is punitive and politically driven.