Why is Jimmy Kimmel being held to a higher standard than Donald Trump?

‘Just imagine a world where Donald Trump and his family (both blood and Maga) don’t know or care what’s going on with Jimmy Kimmel.’ Photograph: Randy Holmes/ABC/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreen‘Just imagine a world where Donald Trump and his family (both blood and Maga) don’t know or care what’s going on with Jimmy Kimmel.’ Photograph: Randy Holmes/ABC/AFP/Getty ImagesJimmy KimmelWhy is Jimmy Kimmel being held to a higher standard than Donald Trump?Jesse HassengerThe talkshow host has found himself targeted by the president once again but his jokes fail to have the influence or tastelessness that the right like to claimTue 28 Apr 2026 11.16 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 Apr 2026 11.24 EDTShareIn an episode of the classic sitcom Arrested Development, dutiful son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) corrects his wily but not always culture-savvy mother Lucille (Jessica Walter) that she has not actually been confronted and embarrassed by Michael Moore: “That was a Michael Moore impersonator for a bit on Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Lucille, as always, is undeterred: “I don’t know who that is and I don’t care to find out.” It’s a hilariously haughty response, withering in its blithe lack of interest. It also accidentally attains a kind of dignity through ignorance that Donald Trump – who is, like Lucille Bluth, wealthy, elderly and frequently cruel – could only dream of stumbling into.Jimmy Kimmel defends Melania ‘widow’ joke after the Trumps call for him to be firedRead moreOr maybe that’s actually our dream. Just imagine a world where Trump and his family (both blood and Maga) don’t know or care what’s going on with Jimmy Kimmel. Alas, we live in a world where Kimmel is directly and repeatedly lambasted by the White House for making a joke that seemed in poorer taste after an assassination attempt on Trump. This is despite the joke itself being written and delivered well before the event in question – the talkshow monologue version of pre-crime, if you can conceive of something that embarrassing.Here’s the non-story: two days before the White House correspondents’ dinner, an event typically attended by press and the president, and hosted by a comedian, Kimmel made a joke on his show about what he might say were he to serve in that host role. Imagining he was addressing Melania Trump, he said: “Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” It was obviously a crack at the president’s advanced age and much-denied rumors of his declining health. In the aftermath of the actual incident, where a gunman attempted to enter the ballroom where the event was held, both Donald and Melania Trump retconned Kimmel’s broadside as a bloodthirsty, hate-filled call to violence. Perhaps the implication is that the more humane reaction would be to wait for Trump’s eventual demise, and then gloat about it, as Trump has about figures as varied as lawyer Robert Mueller and film-maker Rob Reiner. Or maybe Kimmel should have organized a “peaceful” protest where his supporters could violently storm a government building.2:12Trump and White House fire back at Kimmel over Melania 'expectant widow’ joke – videoKimmel is not the first or most harmed victim of intentional bad-faith readings from Trump (though “reading” is always a generous term for a man who seems half-literate). In fact, one of the most notably strange things about Kimmel as a cultural figure is the outsized importance Trump, and therefore Maga, place upon him. In the Maga mind, radical leftwing…

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