US regulator to review ABC broadcasting licence after Trumps criticised Jimmy Kimmel joke

LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

THE US FEDERAL Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered an early review of the licence of broadcaster ABC, a day after Donald Trump and his wife Melania demanded it fire comedian and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. 

The order affects Disney, which owns ABC, and its television subsidiaries. The licences were not scheduled to have to apply for renewal until at least 2028. 

The FCC is a federal government agency that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, Wi-Fi, satellite and cable across the US. It is run by Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump to the chairman position last year. 

On Monday, the Trumps called for ABC to cancel Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show over a joke he made about Melania. 

In a show last week, Kimmel had portrayed himself as MC of the upcoming White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, addressing the first lady and saying: “Mrs Trump, you have the glow of an expectant widow.”

It was two days before a gunman opened fire at the media dinner in Washington DC, which was attended by the US president and first lady. The suspect, Cole Allen, was charged with attempting to assassinate Trump yesterday. 

On Monday, Melania Trump called for ABC to “take a stand” against Kimmel over the remark, claiming his “hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country”.

“His monologue about my family isn’t comedy – his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” she said in a post on X.

The US president later echoed his wife’s comments, saying the joke was “a despicable call to violence” and that Kimmel “should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC”. 

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Kimmel brushed off the criticism on his show last night, saying the gag was “obviously… a joke about their age difference.”

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said. “It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination, and they know that.”

He said he was sorry that the couple and others in attendance at the event went through that traumatic and scary experience. Addressing Melania’s remarks, he said:

I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.

The White House went back on the attack today, with communications director Steven Cheung on X describing Kimmel as a “shit human” for “doubling down on that joke instead of doing the decent thing by apologising.”

Last September, Kimmel’s show was suspended after the US government threatened to cancel broadcasting licences because of comments the host made about the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and Trump’s response to it.

Kimmel had covered a few topical issues in his opening monologue before turning to the death of Kirk.

He said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Footage then played of Trump being asked by a reporter how he was holding up after the death of Kirk, an ally of his. Trump deflected and spoke about the construction of the White House’s ballroom.

Kimmel joked that Trump’s response was more akin to how a child grieves for a goldfish than an adult friend.

The suspension was highly criticised and the show returned to air later the same month.

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