Jimmy Kimmel Learns His Fate After Being Kicked Off Air - WOW!
Late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel responded to Donald Trump’s criticism of the comedian’s off-color joke directed at first lady Melania Trump earlier late last week in which he referenced her becoming a “widow” not long before another attempt was made on the president’s life Saturday during the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Kimmel made the remark during his late-night program while imagining himself hosting the WHCA Dinner, where he delivered jokes aimed at the president and first lady, Fox News reported. “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” the ABC host said.
“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said. “It was not—by any stretch of the definition—a call to assassination.”
Kimmel then continued to criticize the first lady, doubling down on political rhetoric after President Trump’s warnings.
“Obviously, it was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” he said, adding that “they know that” was not a joke about “assassination” but Trump dying of old age.
In a post on X, Melania Trump called Kimmel’s joke about her “hateful and violent” and urged ABC — which airs his show — to take action.
Following the insult, the Federal Communications Commission ordered The Walt Disney Company’s ABC to seek early broadcast license renewals for the eight TV stations it owns, NPR reported.
As the FCC began its early license renewal process, Chair Brendan Carr expressed criticism towards Disney, the parent company of ABC. In a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, whose husband is Stephen Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House, Carr mentioned several approaches the FCC can take regarding broadcast licenses.
“You can accelerate when a license comes due and say, ‘hey, we have significant concerns with the value of conducting your operations. We want to review your license now and decide if you’re in the public interest,'” Carr said. “If we find that a broadcast hasn’t been doing that, then the statute requires us to issue a hearing designation order.”
But the Trumps’ responses and the FCC’s demand have seemingly not affected Kimmel, who responded to all of that during his Tuesday show by essentially saying he’ll continue on, per CNN Business. He avoided mentioning the FCC’s actions and instead “used a satirical monologue on King Charles and Queen Camilla’s visit to the White House to highlight the hypocrisy of a joke the president made about his marriage to first lady Melania Trump,” CNN noted.
During an arrival ceremony for the royals, Trump spoke Tuesday about his parents’ 63-year-marriage before he turned to the first lady and joked, “That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling, I’m sorry.”
Kimmel then referenced his off-color joke about the first lady and asked his audience, “Wait a minute, did he just make a joke about his death?”
“Only Donald Trump would demand that I be fired for making a joke about his old age and then a day later, go out and make a joke about his old age,” Kimmel said.
The new FCC order, meanwhile, is naturally being criticized by Democrats on Capitol Hill and others in Washington. “The FCC has just pulled out a sword to hang over every single news organization in America,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told NPR. “And to say: you report things that Donald Trump doesn’t like and your entire station, your entire outfit, your entire business model could just disappear in the blink of an eye.”
Trump Admin Says It Uncovered $10 Billion Obamacare Fraud Scheme
The Trump administration says it has uncovered what it describes as a massive fraud scheme within the Affordable Care Act.
Members of Trump’s administration allege that roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out between 2021 and 2024 because of weakened enrollment safeguards under former President Joe Biden.
According to a Department of Health and Human Services report, officials have already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments and estimate another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.
Administration officials say the findings are part of a broader government-wide effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across federal programs.
The report traces the alleged problems to changes made during the Biden administration that expanded enrollment opportunities while relaxing income verification and eligibility checks.
At the start of Biden’s presidency, approximately 10 million people were enrolled through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. By 2024, enrollment had surged to roughly 22 million.
Federal investigators now believe millions of those enrollments were improper, fraudulent, or created without the knowledge of the individuals involved.
“By our estimate, improper, phantom, and fraudulent enrollment peaked at 5.6 million people in 2025,” the report states.
“We estimate 2.6 million improper and phantom enrollments remain, including over 1 million enrollments without a Social Security number.”
According to the report, several different forms of abuse contributed to the alleged fraud.
Officials say some applicants intentionally understated their income to qualify for larger taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Others allegedly received premium assistance despite failing to meet eligibility requirements.
Investigators also identified what they describe as “phantom enrollments,” in which insurance brokers allegedly enrolled people in Obamacare plans without their knowledge to collect federal commissions.
The report argues that reduced verification requirements made those practices significantly easier to carry out.
Since taking office, the Trump administration says it has restored stricter income verification requirements, ended several special enrollment periods, increased screening for duplicate Medicaid enrollment, and launched investigations into brokers suspected of creating phantom policies.
Officials also say they have strengthened oversight of agents participating in the federal marketplace.
As a result of those efforts, nearly three million enrollments have already been removed from the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Even after those removals, approximately 19.2 million people remain enrolled.
The administration says its goal is not to reduce legitimate coverage but to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent only on individuals who actually qualify.
“Preserving the fiscal and programmatic integrity of the ACA Exchanges is key to safeguarding taxpayer-funded resources for those that truly need them,” the report states.
“The federal government paying brokers to enroll individuals without their knowledge is not.”
The report also says the administration will continue pursuing additional enforcement actions against brokers and others accused of exploiting the program.
“The Trump Administration continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption by promulgating new regulations to improve program integrity, investigating suspected improper or fraudulent enrollment, and taking action against agents and brokers committing fraud.”
The findings are likely to reignite debate over the Affordable Care Act and how aggressively eligibility rules should be enforced.
Supporters of the administration argue the report demonstrates that stricter oversight is necessary to protect taxpayers and preserve benefits for those legally entitled to receive them.
Critics of previous verification rollbacks have long warned that loosening enrollment safeguards could increase improper payments and fraud, while supporters of the Biden-era policies argued the changes made healthcare more accessible to eligible Americans, Fox News reported exclusively.
The administration says its investigations remain ongoing, with an estimated 2.6 million additional enrollments still under review as officials continue auditing the federal health insurance exchanges.
Trump has been pushing to replace Obamacare for over a decade, and this may give Republicans enough motivation to actually do something.
