ABC’s ‘GMA’ Ducks, ‘CBS Mornings’ Defends Kimmel Over Smear Wishing Trump Dead

Curtis Houck
April 28th, 2026 3:09 PM

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On Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America ignored its own network’s controversy with far-left late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s boast last Thursday that President Trump would die while CBS Mornings not only defended Kimmel as “not some crazy person who would wish” death on someone, but lied about why Kimmel was suspended in September after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. As for NBC’s Today, they were more muted while still carrying Kimmel’s water.

Sure, ABC is now facing some FCC license renewal scrutiny at its owned and operated affiliates, but if they truly believe Kimmel saying the First Lady looks like “an expectant widow” isn’t that big of a deal, why hide?

Over on CBS, co-host Gayle King lamented “the President and the First Lady are now demanding that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel be fired over remarks he made before the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

King also stood up for her fellow elite liberal at the end of chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes’s spin-filled report: “Jimmy Kimmel is not some crazy person that would wish the President to be killed. That’s — he just would not do that.”

The great Bonchie of RedState pointed out that, back on December 1, 2014, King sang a very different tune when the Elizabeth Lauten odyssey took place, telling viewers that Lauten’s comments about the Obama daughters drew a “backlash and an apology that some people say is too little, too late[.]”

For the uninitiated or too young to have been politically inclined, Lauten was a House communications director for a Tennessee Republican when she posted comments on Facebook about the way the Obama daughters were dressed for a White House event.

Whereas Kimmel has friends in powerful places like King or CNN’s Brian Stelter and Jake Tapper to defend him at every turn no matter what he says, the liberal media eagerly and gleefully tried to ruin her life and run her out of town.

Back to Cordes’s report, she argued Jimmy Kimmel’s “new joke” about Trump dying that ignited the President’s “anger” was part of a bit “skewer[ing] the lack of a comedian” with “a pretend roast of his own.”

Cordes brushed aside Kimmel’s “expectant widow” line by arguing the joke “[i]nitially, Kimmel’s comments didn’t get much pick-up.”

Once she quoted snippets of the First Lady’s X post and Trump’s Truth Social post demanding Kimmel lose his job, she turned to Kimmel’s September suspension when he lost less than a week’s worth of shows.

Here was when Cordes was truly irresponsible and misleading. After saying ABC had “suspend[ed] Kimmel for nearly a week” after “facing pressure from the Trump administration,” Cordes only played this half-clip of Kimmel’s remark about the Kirk assassin suspect: “We hit some new lows over the weekend.”

Cordes interjected with her explanation of what Kimmel said: “...after the late-night host accused the ‘MAGA Gang’ of trying to score political points from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.”

Fact-check: Kimmel was suspended for falsely claiming the Kirk suspect was a MAGA supporter and there was no disputing otherwise.

Here’s Kimmel’s full quote from September 15: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Once Cordes aired more of Kimmel’s insistence he wasn’t calling for Trump’s death, King delivered her defense of the ABC host but also praised Cordes: “Nancy, I’m glad you put it in context that the joke was made before the Correspondents Dinner.”

Over on NBC’s Today, co-host Craig Melvin said the WHCD “shooting has led to a new clash between the First Family and Jimmy Kimmel” with the Kimmel “pushing back overnight after the President and First Lady called for Kimmel to be fired over a controversial joke.”

Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez relayed Kimmel was “standing by” his “expectant widow” insult, “calling it nothing more than a days-old light roast about the President’s age while also pushing the White House to tone down its own rhetoric.”

Interspersed between clips of Kimmel from both Thursday and then Monday (when he said it was just “a very light joke” and not “by an stretch of the definition” a “call to assassination”), Gutierrez said the late-night host was “facing a new backlash after a controversial joke last week.”

“Kimmel now saying it was nothing more than a joke about the Trump’s age difference,” he added.

He did tout Kimmel “taking on the White House” and suggesting they are the side who has to tone it down (click “expand”):

GUTIERREZ: The controversy comes just seven months after ABC briefly suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live in the wake of a monologue following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Now, the comedian taking on the White House, referencing a comment from the press secretary before the dinner.

KIMMEL [on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, 04/27/26]: If you want us to believe that a joke I made three days before this dinner had any effect on anything that happened, well, and maybe someone should look into this psychic lady, too.

KAROLINE LEAVITT [on FNC’s The Fox Report, 04/25/26]: This speech tonight will be in classic Donald J. Trump. It’ll be funny, it’ll be entertaining, there will be some shots fired tonight.

[CROWD GASPS]

GUTIERREZ: And speaking directly to the First Lady:

KIMMEL [on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, 04/27/26]: 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 because – [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]

To see the relevant transcripts from April 28, click here (for CBS) and here (for NBC).

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