The late night star has insisted his “widow” joke about first lady Melania Trump was not “a call to assassination” after President Donald Trump said he should be “immediately fired” over the remarks.

Kimmel began his program Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday by describing the joke as a light roast about the couple’s age difference and “not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination.”

Kimmel’s explanation for the joke came after a gunman attempted to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night.

Days before the incident, Kimmel did a sketch about the dinner where he joked that Melania had a “glow like an expectant widow.”

In Monday’s monologue, Kimmel expressed sympathy with the president and those in attendance at the event who went through the traumatic and scary experience.

“The system worked. Could it be much better? Yes,” Bobby McDonald, who protected then-presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, told The Independent on Monday. “We had a positive outcome, not a successful one.”

The dinner was thrown into chaos after the suspected lone gunman, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, allegedly rushed past security and fired at least one gunshot. The suspected shooter was targeting members of the Trump administration, he wrote in a message to family members before the attack, according to court documents.

US president Donald Trump has said the White House Correspondents’ Dinner will be rescheduled within 30 days after Saturday’s event was disrupted by a shooting, the third alleged attempt on his life since taking office.

Mr Trump was attending the annual dinner for the first time as president — having skipped it during his first term — when a suspect believed to be targeting him opened fire at the security barricades at the Washington Hilton before being apprehended.

“I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement,” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social. In a separate post, he said he had “spoken with all the representatives in charge of the event, and we will be rescheduling within 30 days.”

Speaking to reporters later that evening, some still in their dinner attire, Mr Trump insisted: “We’re going to do it again. We’re not going to let anybody take over our society. We’re not going to cancel things out.”

“I don’t want to have a crazy person be able to cancel something like this,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Cole Tomas Allen, 31, has been slapped with three charges following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, the Department of Justice said.

The first and most serious charge is an attempt to assassinate the president of the United States, which carries a potential sentence of up to life in federal prison. He also faces a charge of transporting a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony, and a third charge of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence — each carrying up to 10 years in prison.

Allen’s next court appearance is a detention hearing on Thursday which will determine whether he remains in custody until trial.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Jimmy Kimmel’s joke on Melania and Donald Trump was part of a campaign of rhetoric from Democrats and some in the media that “has helped to legitimize this violence.”

“Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?” Leavitt said. There was no indication that Kimmel was referring to violence.

Her reaction comes after both president and first lady called for ABC to fire Kimmel on Monday after a joke last week in which the late-night comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”

The dinner was thrown into chaos after the suspected lone gunman, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, allegedly rushed past security and fired at least one gunshot. The suspected shooter was targeting members of the Trump administration, he wrote in a message to family members before the attack, according to court documents.

Allen, a 31-year-old computer engineer from California, has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president, as well as two weapons charges.

More details in our full story.

The incident unfolded on Saturday night, as the president attended the event for the first time since 2011. Baseless speculation about whether the shooting, which follows two assassination attempts against Trump in 2024, was staged blew up on social media shortly after. ​

The term “staged” was featured in more than 300,000 posts on X by midday Sunday, according to TweetBinder.​

When asked on CBS News’60 Minutes about conspiracy theories swirling around the event, Trump initially said he had not heard about the online speculation.

More details in our full story.

Jimmy Kimmel may be a reluctant supporter of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, he joked during his opening monologue on Monday.

“I might be pro-ballroom now, after this,” he said.

He added that if “anything terrible ever happens, at least they can dance” in Trump’s signature project.

Kimmel’s not the only one.