Kimmel pushes back after Melania Trump urges his firing

[0:00] Jimmy Kimmel pushed back against new calls from the First Lady and the President, basically to get him fired, this time over a joke he made last week, days before the White House Correspondents Dinner. [0:12] Of course, our First Lady Melania is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. [0:21] Again, that was days before the incident Saturday night, the attempted shooting there, but now the First Lady says his words, Jimmy Kimmel's words are corrosive and they deepen the political sickness within the country. [0:33] And she added, it is time for ABC to take a stand. [0:37] President Trump also said that Kimmel should be fired and said the joke was a despicable call to violence. [0:42] Kimmel pushed back during his monologue overnight. [0:46] Obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together. [0:53] It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. [0:58] It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination and they know that. [1:05] I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular, but I understand that the First Lady had a stressful experience over the weekend and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. [1:17] And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. [1:21] I do. [1:22] And I think a great place to start, to dial that back, would be to have a conversation with your husband about it. [1:27] All right, with us this morning, CNN Media Analyst Sarah Fisher from Axios and CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter. [1:37] Brian, let me just start with you. [1:39] Jimmy Kimmel, to my eye, didn't look particularly nervous last night as he was delivering that monologue. [1:44] And it was notable that he was there at all. [1:47] ABC didn't step in to take him off the air. [1:50] Yes, it absolutely was. [1:51] Yeah, they've done that before, kind of. [1:55] My indication, you know, Disney's being tight-lipped about this. [1:58] So on the record, nobody there is saying anything about Kimmel. [2:01] But my sense, talking with sources, making calls overnight, is that Disney is absolutely standing by Kimmel. [2:07] And you can see that because he was on everyone's television sets last night. [2:10] But more importantly, behind the scenes, there have also been signals to Kimmel and to his team that the company is with him, that the company is not wavering, that the company is not going to try to knuckle or maybe cower in the face of Trump's pressure. [2:24] And that is, of course, notable because of last fall, because of Kimmelgate last fall when he was yanked from the airwaves. [2:31] The reason he was yanked from the airwaves back then was in part due to local stations with cozy ties to the Trump administration that yanked Kimmel's show locally. [2:39] The big difference in this case, John, is that those station group owners, Nexstar and Sinclair, they haven't done a thing. [2:46] They haven't said a word. [2:47] I think they learned last time that it was a mistake to pull Kimmel, and so they're not doing it this time. [2:52] So we're seeing a big difference in the power dynamics here. [2:56] Frankly, John, Kimmel has all the power this time. [2:58] Sarah, how do you see it? [3:01] And I think just remind our viewers of the relationship between the federal government and a broadcast network like ABC. [3:07] I agree with Brian that the dynamic is very different with the local broadcasters, especially because one of those broadcasters, Nexstar, is currently trying to do a big merger, and they're going through a lot of sort of court and litigation filings to be able to get that done. [3:24] And so for them, they're not trying to put themselves in another position where they have to deal with another sort of legal battle when they're trying to get a big deal done. [3:32] I think broadcasters are very vulnerable to these types of attacks from the president in this administration because the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has jurisdiction over broadcast. [3:45] They don't have jurisdiction over Internet properties or cable networks like CNN. [3:49] And so for ABC, which is just one subsidiary in this broader ecosystem that is owned by Disney, they make their parent company more vulnerable to any sort of deals being stopped or probed or evaluated simply by existing as a broadcaster. [4:05] That's why, John, you saw ABC and CBS settle lawsuits with the president but not print publications which aren't regulated as closely by the federal government like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. [4:16] I want to bring in CNN political analyst Sir Michael Singleton and Xochitl Hinoosa. [4:20] I'm glad to have both of you here. [4:21] All right, look, you know full well that this was asked by the president and the first lady. [4:27] They were offended by what he said. [4:29] It did take place two days before the wow's correspondence, and we know, of course, would happen on that occasion. [4:34] Xochitl, what's your reaction to Kimmel's essentially pointing the finger back and saying, [4:40] I think this should be a larger conversation, Mr. President? [4:42] Well, I think there has been this larger conversation over the last 24 to 48 hours about political rhetoric, and I do think it was a joke, and I'm glad he was able to address it. [4:52] He was talking about his age. [4:53] Nobody wants anything to happen to this president or any president for that matter. [4:57] I think that probably moving forward, given the sensitivity of the political rhetoric, maybe we should just stop making jokes about our presidents moving forward when it comes to their age or potentially them passing away. [5:09] There were a lot of jokes at the time about Joe Biden, totally get that, and his age. [5:14] That's what happens when you elect 80-something-year-old presidents, right? [5:18] I will say on the political— [5:19] Is it fact that people think that it's not going to happen anymore? [5:21] I think joking about age is fine. [5:22] I think the potential death of a president, I don't think that we should be joking about that. [5:26] When it comes to the overall narrative about this, I think one thing we need to realize is that the political rhetoric always is set and the tone is set by the sitting president of the United States. [5:40] And that is just the reality of things, regardless of whether the person is a Democrat or a Republican. [5:44] And I believe we do have to take down the temperature, and we've had to take down the temperature for some time. [5:51] There have been threats that have increased significantly since the 2020 election, and now what we're seeing is we're seeing threats, and people play out those threats and potential shooting like in Minneapolis and in other places. [6:05] But when the president says, take it down, I agree with him, but he also needs to take it down, and it does start with the president. [6:11] You know, he should have just apologized. [6:15] I remember when President Biden was in office, and there were a lot of questions about his age. [6:20] I raised many concerns just as a strategist, just as an American, about Democrats needing to be more transparent. [6:28] When the president announced his cancer diagnosis, I completely changed my tune. [6:32] It wasn't appropriate any longer to talk about his age. [6:35] Here's a guy who's 80-something years old. [6:37] He dedicated his life to the country and was battling something that millions of Americans battle every year, and unfortunately, most of them don't have great, superb health care in order to defeat it. [6:48] And so I changed the tune. [6:49] I agree that the president sets the tone. [6:51] I do think the president, in this particular moment in time, should continue to move forward with his words the other night. [6:57] However, I don't look to the president personally. [7:01] I can only speak for sure Michael Singleton here to dictate what my words should be. [7:05] Now, I've seen a lot of Democratic strategists, Republican strategists on different networks today saying, well, it's the Republicans' fault or it's the Democrats' fault. [7:14] And I could certainly do that here tonight, or I could just look within myself and say, well, is this the time for that? [7:20] Or can I lead by example as a strategist and say, I'm not going to demonize my friends on the other side? [7:24] Sure, there are things that I can certainly point out, and the same could be said here. [7:28] But is this the time for that? [7:30] Or is this a moment to have a different type of analysis that elevates beyond the noise? [7:34] What is that analysis? [7:34] Is it going beyond the idea? [7:37] I mean, because the conversations are all about rhetoric, right? [7:40] But the conversations could also be about the prevalence of gun violence. [7:44] The conversation could also be about security protocols in place. [7:48] It could also be about funding for different agencies. [7:52] It could be a number of things. [7:53] And, of course, this is part of what strategically you all will try to figure out, I'm sure, going forward through the midterm elections, of how voters will look at these issues. [8:01] Because I've got to tell you, most voters are going to look at this actual dinner as an unattainable, elitist event to attend, right? [8:10] But they'll look at the larger issues of how it impacts their feelings of safety more broadly. [8:14] If this will remain safe, where is? [8:17] Yeah, and I think that's right. [8:18] And there is gun violence all across America. [8:22] I bought my daughter light-up shoes, and a mom came up to me and said, [8:27] you probably shouldn't do that for a little girl who's going to enter kindergarten because that is unsafe in case there is an active shooter in her school. [8:35] I hadn't thought about that. [8:36] But those are the precautions that parents take now when they are trying to send their kids to school. [8:44] And to be clear, this is not a mass shooting event. [8:47] This is not correct. [8:47] That's not what I'm trying to infer here. [8:50] However, the conversations that are happening in people's homes are less, I think, about maybe just rhetoric and more, for the reasons you're talking about, that you don't set the tone based on the president and what you're saying, and more about larger issues of the political apparatuses. [9:07] Yeah, and I want to talk about how it wasn't a mass shooting. [9:10] If that shooter would have been there about 30 minutes earlier, that would have been a mass shooting. [9:16] People in that area are crowded. [9:18] It would have been very hard for the Secret Service to actually shoot and take the guy down without hurting anybody else. [9:25] And you don't know who's not with him. [9:27] And there's so many other dynamics. [9:28] And that, his intention seemed to be, yes, it was the cabinet, but also to cause harm to a lot of people. [9:36] And the timing was critical. [9:38] The fact that he waited so long and the fact that he was delayed, it could have been a terrible disaster for very many people. [9:47] So why are there so many conspiracy theories that abound right now? [9:50] Because, as you know, we're often, in this reality that we're in, we're often battling not just the acquisition of information, but confronting conspiracy theories who will look at what's unfolding and say, hmm, this is something else. [10:06] That's a reality as well in the American political system now, where people are looking at instances like this, and they have their own narratives and conspiracy theories. [10:14] And that adds to the conversation. [10:16] Well, look, I think it's a part of the subjectivist nature of today. [10:20] People see things, they interpret it however they want to believe it. [10:23] They say, well, this can't be true, or there's more to this story, even when there technically aren't, perhaps more to a certain given story. [10:31] We've seen this across the board from the previous two attempts on the president's life. [10:35] We've seen this when other political leaders on the other side have been attacked physically and harmed, where folks have said, well, they may have hired someone to do this for political points. [10:44] I mean, it's really a bit deranged where we currently are, but I will say this. [10:49] It's really been a focal point to use rhetoric in terms of persuasion for politics, right? [10:55] Like, I'm going to use my words to persuade the other side that I'm right and my opponent is wrong. [11:00] Now what we're finding is more and more people are recognizing that perhaps coercion is the better way, through force, through violence, to accomplish my means. [11:09] And that, to me, is incredibly troubling because a democracy, any form of government, really can't sustain itself if by force is the only means of survivability versus, again, the art of rhetoric.