Jimmy Kimmel made a mistake — the kind comedians who tiptoe on the fine lines of propriety sometimes make.

Had it not been for an unexpected and horrific turn of events, he probably would have gotten away with it. But it was a mistake, nonetheless.

On his late-night ABC program last week, Kimmel did a sketch in which he pretended to be the comic entertainer at the White House correspondents’ dinner. “Of course, our first lady, Melania, is here,” he said. Then, while intercutting a shot of her from some other event, he quipped, “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

As we now know, 48 hours later an armed assailant stormed toward the Washington Hilton’s ballroom as the president and the first lady sat on the dais.

No one was hurt, but within hours Melania Trump and the president were calling for ABC to fire Kimmel. Referring to the host as a “coward,” Mrs. Trump posted on X, “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy. His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.”

She has pieces of a point — excepting the part about Kimmel being a coward, and the notion that ABC should fire him.

One of the things I learned in researching my book, “Playing POTUS,” about comedians and the presidency, is that it’s best to avoid all references to death. I would have written the line: “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant divorcée.”

On Monday Kimmel told viewers he “woke up to a Twitter vomit storm.”

At a time when he had the nation’s — and Trump’s — full attention, he could have acknowledged his mistake. That would have instantly placed him on higher ground than the president, who frequently makes inappropriate wisecracks.

Instead, Kimmel chose to defend himself. “Obviously it was a joke about their age difference,” he insisted, “and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” He added that he was by no means trying to inspire an assassin — which I believe to be true but beside the point. Forecasting the death of one’s political enemies is always wrong.

Kimmel’s case isn’t helped by his defenders, such as Democratic apologist Paul Begala, who went on CNN to join the chorus of what-about-Trump-ism. Let’s stipulate that Trump says horrible things, for instance, responding to the demise of Robert S. Mueller III by declaring, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead!”

That doesn’t excuse Kimmel’s poor judgment.

Last September the network pulled Kimmel off the air for a few days after conservatives objected to a monologue in which Kimmel intimated that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk had been murdered by one of Trump’s supporters.

All media, particularly legacy broadcasters, are facing intense pressure from the Trump administration to toe the President’s line. Not coincidentally, the FCC has begun looking at ABC’s broadcast licenses.

Like many comics cited in my book for influencing public opinion about presidents — such as Chevy Chase, who helped bring down Gerald Ford — Jimmy Kimmel provides a nightly wake-up call. He usually does it with the same carefully controlled cutting edge used by the best of the current late-night bunch, including Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert.

I feel certain that if Kimmel had known last week what was to happen at the Hilton, he never would have told his “widow” joke.

In this regrettable case, what-about-Trump-ism refers less to two men who make inappropriate cracks about mortality, than it does to guys who are unwilling to admit they sometimes make mistakes.

– Copyright 2026 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.