There have now been three attempts on Trump’s life. It is no joking matter.
What Happened?
Today the Wall Street Journal reports Suspected Gunman Charged With Attempting to Assassinate Trump
Prosecutors have charged 31-year-old Cole Allen with three counts, including attempting to assassinate President Trump, unsealing a criminal complaint and affidavit against him.
Allen is suspected of firing shots Saturday outside the White House Correspondents’ dinner. He made his first appearance in federal court Monday in Washington, D.C., wearing bright-blue jail scrubs. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said authorities were still examining who shot a Secret Service officer wounded in the incident.
No matter what your feelings are about Trump, the voting booth, not assassinations, are the way to deal with it.
Kimmel joked “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
Please note that Kimmel’s joke was two days before the event. But the joke was more than a bit tasteless and inappropriate.
Jimmy Kimmel works for the Walt Disney Company, which owns the ABC television network, where he hosts and produces Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
Whataboutism Rears Its Head
Excuse Me for Asking But …
One More for the Road
Three Questions
- Excuse me for asking but should Trump be setting the standard for acceptable speech?
- How is whataboutism relevant?
- Should Disney Fire Jimmy Kimmel After His Trump Assassination Joke?
That Trump is a tasteless moron who threatens to kill an entire civilization does not excuse Kimmel’s joke.
Nor do his crass statements on “hell hole countries” or blasphemous posts where he depicts himself as Jesus Christ.
Trump should not be setting the standard for acceptable behavior.
Trump on Truth Social
Wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking. He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren’t, and never would be. He then stated, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason. I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Not Understanding Free Speech
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Not a Freedom of Speech Issue
This is not a question of free speech issue no matter how many times people try to make it one.
Freedom of speech protects individuals and the press against abridging actions by the government.
Kimmel Has a Right to Make Idiotic Jokes
Kimmel has right to make idiotic jokes. Everyone else has the same right, too.
Kimmel did not incite violence against Trump. He and Trump have the same right to make idiotic comments.
ABC Has the Right to Fire Kimmel for Them
Kimmel has rights. So do ABC and Disney. They have the right to fire Kimmel. It would not be a violation of the first amendment to do so.
Unless there is a clause in Kimmel’s contract that forbids him for being fired for tasteless and stupid jokes, Disney should consider doing so.
Whataboutism is irrelevant. Assassinations are no joking matter.
Related Posts
April 23, 2026: Trump Labels China and India “Hellhole Countries” How Many Will That Offend?
Every day, Trump does something to offend more voters.
April 15, 2026: Trump Continues His Foolish War with the Pope. It Will Cost Republicans Votes
Trump pulled his offending depiction of himself as Jesus Christ. But he continues to fight the church.
Republicans are going to get hammered in the Midterms over inflation, the economy, lies unpopular wars, and idiotic statements
For discussion, please see How Big Will the “Blue Wave” Be in the Midterm Elections?
I expect Republicans will lose nearly every seat the consensus now labels as tossup.
Note: I am not a Democrat and have not voted for either a Republican or Democrat candidate for president for decades, but I have never missed a national election in my life.
Addendum
Ugh. You cannot edit a reply on X. Should say “Their best interest”.
Absolutely not!
Trump is old enough to be Melania’s father…
What a ridiculous double standard.
Chill out. Why waste so many words over a tiny issue when there are lots of real, serious things you could be thinking and writing about?
It’s not like he incited a riot to overthrow the Government and trie to hang Mike Pence. So Kimmel making a few jokes … oh well.
Unless you really believe that Government should be the ultimate “Cancel Culture” police.
This is not government cancel culture.
ABC/Disney will decide what is in its best interest.
Not a matter of free speech at all.
sure, wtf. trump and family are rabidly calling ABC to fire him. The FCC is now reviewing ABC’s licenses.
Talk about gulag Soviet tactics, but no this isn’t about first amendment. That’s nuts if you believe that.
You’re off base on this Mish. You don’t usually deviate from libertarian, but you’re dead wrong on this. Dead wrong.
Please tell me how I deviated from Libertarian.
This is ABC’s call and all I said was ABC is entitled to do what is in their best interest.
That is 100% a Libertarian view.
I’m saying that ABC of course has a right to fire Kimmel if it chooses to. That’s not a First Amendment issue, bc that is not what the First Amendment is about.
What I’m saying is that ABC is not operating in a vacuum. The fact that the administration is applying the pressure of the Government is beyond the pale. The events occurring are inter-related and the fact that today the FCC is now re-evaluating ABCs licenses shows the heavy hand of the government trying to strong arm ABC into their desired outcome. How can that possibly be libertarian?
Personally, I think Kimmel’s joke is tasteless, but trump is trying to use it as a way to attack an enemy, which is what he does.
I just think you’re wrong on this take. I don’t think that you can just assert that ABC should make a decision on this dumb joke, without including all the context around it. The timing, the pressure from the government, Trumps abhorrent behavior when other people died, those things all come into play here.
Totally disagree – this is how democracies collapse. Sounds dramatic but media pressue is a key weapon towards total control.
Orban, Putin etc. didn’t take explicit control of the media at the start – it was about pressure.
Weaponisation of the FCC is Trump’s biggest weapon – way stronger than even the DoJ.
Souuld also add this is why a theological Libertarian position is so damaging. Ignoring practicalities is simply a fast track to chaos.
Also, the indictment of Comey on posting a picture of seashells spelled out to a show a series of numbers that I don’t want to spell out is further evidence of the insanity of this administration, and its ongoing efforts to go after anyone that they perceive as opponents.
Any thinking person would conclude that what Comey posted is in no way an advocacy or threat against the president. However, today, the “Justice” department has secured an indictment against him. More clear evidence of the Soviet style tactics of attacking any and all perceived enemies to the Politburo.
I think it’s a bit presumptive to suggest Kimmel was talking about assassination- Trump is obese and has questionable health at this very moment with the had painting and coverings. His neck and the parts we can’t see tell a very different story to the one his Drs and Trump himself espouses.
I think personally Kimmel’s joke is about the potential demise of the unhealthy wannabe tyrant that makes Jabba the Hut look like David Hasselhoff (back in the day).
Melania also has never appeared warm and her recent speech was about her and not Trump’s association w Epstein- seemingly cutting the cord and leaving Trump to deal with his connections to Epstein.
Conflating Kimmel’s joke with the weekends events is a bit much.
Way past time for even more voters to cancel the King’s party candidates. (That will be the silver lining if Disney cancels Kimmel …. along with the blow-back to all things Disney …)
No. I like my propagandists out in the open. Makes it easier to call them out and laugh at their daily or weekly mental breakdowns.
You must watch a lot of Fox News then.
if it’s on cable, it’s propaganda. just pick your team and fall in line. sounds like you’re quite the obedient slave. good boy.
Say hi to Putin for me!
It’s a bot. I doesn’t feel reality.
dance for me!
wrong question. the question is, should the FCC issue threats about revoking a license because Kimmel says things the Trumps dont like.
The simple reason why we have these repeated assassination attempts is that we are the only country (apart from Yemen) that thinks owning a gun is a basic human right. Pair that fact with having a lot of mentally unstable young men around consuming toxic social media, and you have a ready supply of crazies shooting up our school children and, yes, sometimes trying to shoot up the president.
Funny how it is almost all from one side of the aisle…..
Afghanistan and other countries also are awash in guns. Israel, for that matter.
Those countries have fewer mentally unstable young men, perhaps?
are you at home cutting up physical pieces of vhs tape where you recorded kimmel’s show and snorting them?
Even simpler reason: the US is just the richest banana republic in the world, where political assassination is par for the course.
Forest and trees.
Is this honestly about “taste”, or “decency”, really? Like an off color joke about the president dying really triggers anyone involved at this point?
It’s about the Mafia like behavior at the FCC, it’s about intimidation tactics against any unfriendly media. Look at CBS cmon. Disney is as evil as anything, of course they will act in their best interest, it’s just not our best interest.
Trump has failed to take the high road time and time again and shows he has no class. That’s why everyone else should have some class and not behave like a 12 year old kid. It will highlight how inappropriate Trump can be. Kimmel is just not funny so that should be reason enough to fire him.
that’s up to abc and abc’s sponsors, not the fcc. Kimmel is an unfunny douche nozzle, but there’s lots of unfunny douche nozzles on tv late night programs. No one should be censored.
What aboutism? I agree but Melania can’t make that comment if she didn’t say anything about her husbands comments. That is hypocrisy.
If the shooting had not taken place that joke would have floated over most people five minutes after it had been said. I thought it was funny at the time. Trump is an old goat and I don’t think there is much affection in that relationship. So it probably hit a nerve with Melania.
remember the eagles song Lying Eyes?
I do not vote PERIOD. It is like Fluttering dollars bills out of a car window spending my fuel money driving to a voting booth. And, the choices are:
A 3rd party is not allowed, so there you have it. Vote for a piece of shit – – or vote for a turd.
Why bother firing him? Himmel is just doing his usual obnoxious schtick. Who cares? For years, I and millions of others do not watch or support the sponsors of him and that obnoxious network.
I believe that free speech is the most fundamental right of Americans. That being said, Kimmel’s comments were in very poor taste, much like what Trump has brazenly spouted over the years. The differing point is that Kimmel is an employee of the ABC Network. ABC Network’s job is to attract advertisers. If advertisers are upset about Kimmel’s remarks, it is ABC’s job to protect the company and its revenue stream, not the First Amendment. Kimmel would be free to say whatever he wants on his soapbox on a street corner, but ABC is not required to give him the platform to express his views over the airwaves.
Just look to the advertising executive for Bud-Light. The Dylan Mulvaney LBGTQ controversy cost her her job. The distributors of Bud-Light were in an uproar. Bud-Light has never recovered in sales after that advertising fiasco.
Trump has set the tone for how we speak as civilized people. He turned the Bully pulpit into a real Bully pulpit. He lowered the bar to where it is today. It is ok to say anything incite hate and violence, demean and marginalize. Like so much of the Maga movement. they can dish it out but oh my God they cannot take it.
you love Trump so much that you gave him the ability to set the tone? Man you are weak.
No, he shouldn’t. When i first heard about this I thought it was in poor taste and very wrong. But that’s because i assumed, like 100% of the people who read the headlines and Melania’s post, that he had made the joke right after the assassination attempt.
But he didn’t. He made it DAYS BEFORE. It was obviously an age joke. She’s 25 years younger than him. Of course she’ll be a widow. if she isn’t, something tragic happened. I’m sure lots of the outrage was made on this wrong assumption and then people didn’t want to admit that and stuck to it.
Also as far as whataboutism, it’s a valid form of argumentation when the issue is whether someone is espousing unequal standards. that’s how you prove discrimination, right? so the right is saying dont’ joke about violence, espousing decorum relating to politicians.
But it’s BS. they don’t actually want that, they just want it applied against liberals and not themselves. The right made jokes after a deranged MAGA nut broke into Pelosi’s home to kidnap/kill her and then fractured her her elderly husband’s skull with a hammer. Sitting members of congress joked about that, and calls of outrage were ignored.
Also, as far as Trump setting the standard for free speech, he’s not. the issue is what standard will we stand for. Society has not made Trump pay a cost for his routine violent rhetoric, or that of the rest of the right including politicians which obviously should be held to a higher standard than some entertainer. Now the right is saying the left should pay a cost -but not them. Whataboutism in this instance is a shorthand for saying that the right is asking for unequal standards.
How is it inciting hatred and violence to point out that Trump is old and looks like he’s about to die? Melania has never made her living off her IQ, but she did not need to prove it again.
Personally I couldn’t care less if Disney fires Kimmel or not. I have not watched that time slot of TV for decades. I will say that if what he is saying gets Trump to beg Brendan Carr of the FCC to shut down media companies, then Kimmel is doing a lot right.
I would say that Melania is probably smarter than everyone on Trump’s cabinet. The fact that she was a fashion model does not make her a dummy. I think she speaks 5 languages.
As an Epstein escort, knowing how several languages helps.
That’s the best description of that porn actress. Got to give it to Don Caligula, he finally made Jimmy funny.
He’s an even bigger joke
a truth social post repurposed as a court filing
lets see if the courts crawl as low as Todd Blanche, our US Attorney General does
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.287645/gov.uscourts.dcd.287645.79.0.pdf
The comment was filmed before the incident at the Hilton. Kimmel should be able to say what he wants as long as he isn’t inciting violence. This thing has been blown out of proportion.
Agreed. if kimmel’s employer and sponsors are cool with his propaganda, the government gets no say. this is as easy as sunday morning.
Boy oh boy! Talk about a storm in a teacup. Sure Trump should set the standard and earn the respect a President should have. Similarly, a comedian shouldn’t be suggesting murder is an acceptable option. However, Trump is on his last legs and Kimmel simply pointed it out – it is you who’s mind immediately thought assassination and that’s (an excuse for you) because Trump has continually lowered standard for casual conversation to where we are today.
This is not about me-too-ism, it’s about acceptable language and Trump has lead us down the rabbit hole while our leaders do nothing.
Another excellent commentary!!!
With one small exception: “No matter what your feelings are about Trump, the voting booth, not assassinations, are the way to deal with it.” I only WISH we (those of us in the USA) could vote our way out of this morass the country has fallen into today. We keep getting, for the most part, the same creeps in Congress and the White House year after year, with no sign of it ever changing any time soon.
This is just distraction
lol, your obedience is always appreciated, phil.
No opinion about Jimmy Kimmel.
But Donald Trump should definitely be fired by the Congress and the American people. [25th]
cry more, son.
“Ugh. You cannot edit a reply on X. Should say “Their best interest”.”
I can so imagine that helpless feeling. Reminds me of that leetspeak creation tool turning every “their” “there” “they’re” into one of the others (in uppercase of course, and LOLZ added).
As a fan of un PC comedians like Jimmy Carr and Dave Chapelle I support the right of TV hosts to joke about anything. That being said ABC should still fire Kimmel as he is as funny as dog shit oozing between your toes as you walk barefoot in the grass.
They fire him based on what the total audience thinks, not what Neal thinks. You know darn well he’s funny to plenty enough people to keep him on the air for what is now… what? Decades? Call that a fluke all you want.
I am a bit of an absolutist when it comes to free speech. No he should not be fired.
I don’t think there would even be a discussion about this type of comment in the UK.
Why on earth MAGA thinks that Britain doesn’t have free speech is beyond me.
Actually I do know and it is because they only want the media to lean one way. This is what this fuss is about and I don’t know why Mish is amplifying it.
Yep, and we don’t shoot protesters on the streets. Well not yet anyway.
But walking around with a British flag is a crime
Believe that if you want but it is not true.
Wrapping yourself in a flag and then barricading a refuge residence whilst being aggressive and abusive maybe, but it has nothing to do with the flag.
Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good begged to differ.
In the USA we are trying to show you the bloody way, should I say the exsanguine way.
As others have noted, you can complain about double standards and that changes nothing. One is a comedian punching up, the other is a madman with nuclear codes losing his mind. You are the one making the false equivalency here, not us.
The good guy routine was tried and it seems like everyone else in these comments is just as over it as I am. The president pressuring a company to fire someone is about as clear cut as one can get for a 1A violation, go ahead and ask Grok—No one cares what an AI says.
Brilliant.
American leaders have not hesitated to assassinate foreign leaders with whom they were negotiating, using what has been called a “decapitation strike.” That these leaders are themselves threatened with assassination is neither surprising nor shocking. They live in their own world.
Brilliant exposition of American Exceptionalism.
After decapitation, there is no leader to negotiate.
That’s Israeli tactics.
They don’t want to negotiate but to decimate completely.
I’ve been a long time critic/skeptic of the U.S. “MSM” going back to when I was a teenager in the 80s and all we had was newspapers and TV. I could see the obvious slant and propaganda on how “news” was covered and how the MSM chose what *was* news and thus helped create what people think is reality.
Ever since we got the internet, the MSM has gone into warp speed overdrive with manipulation of the public and all that goes along with that.
So, I am instinctively tuning out the whole Trump assassination news blitz overload. Trump is still alive (I do not wish him dead btw) and this is a non-story in my opinion. Not even worth my time reading about it. I’m not getting worked up at all about it like a lot of people I know. It’s a bizarre distraction from the doom the world is facing.
The REAL story that matters is the Iran war, the evil deeds Israel has been doing, and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz which threatens every person on this earth economically. And…some people will literally wind up starving to death because of that blockade.
So no, I do not care one iota about the latest Trump drama.
Democratic Lawmakers (Nov 2025): Trump labeled six Democratic members of Congress as “traitors” and accused them of “seditious behavior, punishable by death” after they advised members of the military that they are not obligated to follow unlawful orders.
What did Trump say to others?
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
These are just a few examples.
Not a joke.
Trump is thin skinned. He can dish it out but he sure cant take it. It was two days before so not related to the shooting.
They can fire him but if pressured by trump to do seem illegal
What was that term maga was using. Snowflake.
I’ve heard of Jimmy Kimmel but I don’t think I could pick him out of a lineup. Fire him, don’t fire him, I couldn’t care less.
The POTUS demanding the firing of a comedian for something he said is a clear violation of the 1st amendment and much more worrisome than the joke itself.
I and most of the world would not even be aware of what the comedian said if it wasn’t for Trump’s response.
Mish is barking under the wrong tree here.
? I bet Mish agrees with yout, about the 1st amendment, not the tree
Before Trump said anything, should the guy have been fired? Don’t know, don’t care. None of my business. Up to Disney.
But once Trump violated the 1st Amendment and called for his firing, then I took a stand and so should everyone else. Disney should definitely NOT fire him.
It’s a double standard. How many times has Trump sic’d his loathsome quarterwit supporters on people he doesn’t like? He’s never ever ever held to account.
some funny ones out there.
https://x.com/FurkanGozukara/status/2048491876269875639?s=20
https://x.com/GenoVeno73/status/2048446181760520658?s=20
https://x.com/FurkanGozukara/status/2048470654417064243?s=20
Except people are too burned out not for tasteless and dumb to be the only channel left.
It’s like high school shootings don’t even register anymore. They should but society has taught us to repress such ideas as compassion.
No one cares. But he’s going to die from his epic diet and exercise. Self-assassination?
Firing comedians for making a joke that is in questionable taste (remember, it was made prior to the attempt and was unrelated) sets a terrible precedent.
As to Trump – you are absolutely wrong Mish – the President of the United States should very well be setting the standards and he has failed virtually every day of his first and now second term. The President is one of the most visible public figures in the world and as a result, what he does or does not do sets standards for decorum among other behavior.
In defense of Mish, I’m sure he agrees that the President should be meeting a higher standard, but the current incumbent does not lower the standards for anyone else.
Comedian jokes that stir controversy (in this case only by the accident of timing) should not be off limits for discussion but pressure to fire is nuts … people make jokes all the time that in retrospect did not come off well or landed poorly due to circumstances they were not aware of. That’s life.
As for Trump commenting, beneath the dignity of a president, but djt has none.
The “Aristocrats” joke is the only vehicle capable of doing justice to the depths of depravity the MAGA cult leader and its minions have plumbed.
If a general behaved like Trump how long would they stay? How long would a private stay? I saw a thing that Eisenhower wrote to take personal responsiblity if D-Day failed. Yes, the joke was in poor taste. But how about calling reporters fat or ugly, how about what was said about Iran using the f word. Setting the example begins at the top in the manner you portray, in your mannerisms, in how you carry yourself. The standard should be uniform across the spectrum. Our leaders should be leaders because their character has been tested and their integrity true. That should apply equally whether on the left or the right.
I do think the Butler attempt is extremely suspicious..regardless Mish’s point is spot on. We take our political differences to the ballot box not settle them at the point of a gun. Kimmel crossed a line, I winced we I was watching his show last week.
Although no such line was crossed when potus threatened to obliterate an entire civilization?
Perhaps because potus was bluffing and not joking?
Thank you for your attention to this matter 💗
Trumpstien and his creeps have successfully lowered the bar of social discourse. This is how people talk now. Hundreds of millions of people will rejoice when this guy dies and it’s nobody’s fault but his own.
Whether Kimmel playing to that audience is good business for Disney is up to Disney. The Mouse will decide.
Amen.
I don’t disagree with you too often, but you’re wrong.
Kimmel was NOT joking about assassination whatsoever. Kimmel was clearly commenting on Trump’s age and fitness and, as you point out, this was days before the (some say “staged”) assassination attempt.
Trying to morph this into a situation where Kimmel is joking about assassination is intellectually dishonest and you know it.
Yes, one of Mish’s rare misses. A 0 star Mishelin post, if I dare encroach on MPs territory.
“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” — Justice Louis Brandeis, 1927
Thank you Zen Master. That was my view as well, Trump has literally be falling asleep in live cabinet meetings and photographed or videoed doing it. He has also soiled himself live on TV as well.
He has mysterious visits to medical centers, bruises on his hands and is just plain old and falling apart. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t think Trump finishes his term because of health issues.
I don’t know what was in Kimmel’s mind when he said the joke but press secretary said “there will be shots” right before the Trump press shindig.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/karoline-leavitt-joked-shots-fired-030125173.html
Something that actually happened and leads everyone to believe the whole thing was a false flag sympathy setup.
It is with great sadness that I give this post a 1 feather turkey award.
reeeeeee!!
yeah I think you’re right. Timing is everything.
Notice how no one talked about this when Kimmel made the joke. Only afterward, and after the assassination attempt which happened after Kimmel’s joke.
I’ll say that I think the joke is crude and obnoxious, but in no way was the joke about a trump assassination. Crude, yes. on the edge, yes.
And I don’t buy the whataboutism argument. For trump to claim that what kimmel said is out of bounds is hypocritical at best. A president has historically been expected to set the standard on what is acceptable. Before Trump, there was an awareness that words matter and what came from the office holder mattered, and that they needed to set a higher standard. That changed with trump, where anything goes is the standard. So the things that he said about Rob Reiner, Mueller, etc DO matter. Hypocrisy much, Mr President?
and no, I am not claiming that no president prior to Trump ever said anything that they shouldn’t have or were perfect in what they said. I’m sure it would be easy to go back to every president prior to him, Dem or Republican, and find things from everyone that are regrettable or worse.
what I am saying is that before Trump, those occurrences were the exception not the norm. With Trump, the out of bounds is both more frequent and more egregious.
If anyone needs to retract their comments, it should taco. However, it would take him multiple lifetimes to accomplish it.
Isn’t the larger issue the utter lack of trust citizens have in anything the government says?
Moments after the incident the internet was full of memes ridiculing “yet another fake assassination”. Sober commentators like CIA analyst Larry Johnson questioned the Keystone Cop moments during the lone gunman attack. Why was the VP first to be rushed out? It took half a minute for bodyguards to nudge Trump behind a (not very bullet proof) curtain where he lingered watching events.
And what about the cctv video: some cop lying on the ground for no reason, the weird CGI vanishing pizza boxes, not a single bullet hole in the suspect?
Washington and it’s elites are full of crap 24/7, there’s just no hose big enough to wash the defecation into the sewers, yet.
The whole administration is a clown show, people are supposed to laugh.
And yet they cry, and some fools wonder why.
Waiting with bated breath (not) if this investigation and the facts presented is reminiscent of the others.