First Couple Go for Jimmy Kimmel Jugular
Amid Theories on Hotel Shooting as Hoax
Capitol Inside
April 27, 2026
As social media sizzled with conspiracy theories on a shooting at a press gala in Washington D.C. as a set up, President Donald Trump sought to make it appear on Monday that late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel was partly to blame for the incident based on a joke about Melania Trump that he cracked on his show last week.
While the first lady beat her husband to the punch with a rhetorical pounding of Kimmel in a post on X, Trump echoed her call for his immediate firing by the network that airs his show and the company that controls it as a consequence of a line from a monologue on Thursday when he quipped that the president's wife had the "expectant glow" of a widow.
"I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel's despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."
Trump suggested that Kimmel set the stage for the episode with the gunman at the White House Correspondents Association dinner with the joke about his spouse. "A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives" the president added. "He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason.”
The incident at the Washington Hilton actually took place two nights after Kimmel's crack on the first lady. The Trumps waited almost that long before they came out firing in the collective attempt to portray the TV personality as an accomplice who incited the attack.
"Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country," Melania Trump argued on X. "His monologue about my family isn't comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate."
But the tandem attack on the television star failed to slow or to stop the eruption of conspiracies on the WHCA dinner as an orchestrated production. Social media posts featured a slick graphic with the results of an alleged AP-NORC poll that found that seven in 10 Americans thought the shooting at the WHCA dinner was staged. Trump's camp dismissed the graphic with this particular nugget of news as a fake.
But a lot of people really do think the incident at the D.C. gala was prearranged - even though 70 percent may be a stretch at this point. MS Now host Jonathan Capehart addressed the conspiracy theories on the WHCA shooting on Sunday night - noting that the speculation on the episode as a publicity stunt hasn't been isolated to the left.
"I’m hearing that from my social media pages, from people on the left, also thinking that this was staged, that this was a false flag, that this was something being done on purpose," Capehart said. "If it’s coming from the right and it’s coming from the left - these conspiracy theories - it says to me that there feels to be a lack of trust in this country."
There are several reasons why some Democrats and Republicans believe that the appearance of the gunman at the press gala was nothing more than a publicity stunt - albeit one for the ages - if that turned out to be the case.
1. Timing. The Republicans were desperate for distractions at a time when Trump's words and actions have sent his approval ratings through the floor. From an Iran war without an exit strategy to a feud with the pope to social media posts with a Jesus complex to the trashing of India and China as hellholes, Trump's behavior in the past few weeks has given the Republicans on the fall ballot more cause for anxiety than ever. The attempted assassination before the 2024 election was the ultimate godsend distraction at the time. Some folks still think that was staged.
2. White House Ballroom. The president and his team were prepared to launch a new PR campaign for the ballroom that Trump wants to build at the White House the moment the WHCA dinner ended abruptly when he and his wife and a slew of cabinet members were rushed from the stage. A sizeable chunk of a post-shooting press briefing that Trump held focused on how the incident at the hotel demonstrated the need for a ballroom that would be safer and more secure other venues that are large enough in the area for such an event. MAGA activists reportedly received talking points on the ballroom pitch in group chats just minutes before the shooting in a hallway outside the Hilton meeting room.
3. Security. Media reports have revealed that Trump's team did not have the highest level of security protection in place for the WHCA event. That seemed highly suspicious to some in light of the fact that Vice-President JD Vance and several members of the cabinet attended the dinner with the nation's chief executive. Administrations in the past had made it a point to ensure that the president and vice-president were in separate places as often as possible,
4. Prophecy. Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt promised in an interview before the dinner got under way that shots would be fired when the president delivered his speech there that night. She didn't appear to be speaking literally at the time. When a reporter asked Leavitt on Monday about Americans who believe the WHCA dinner shooting was staged, the president's chief spokesperson declined to deny it. "It's very important to us that we get the truth and the facts about this case and any case out there as quickly as possible,” Leavitt replied.
5. Amateur. The suspect triggered an evacuation in the midst of panic with reporters and others ducking under tables after hearing five or six bangs outside the hotel ballroom. While a Secret Service agent was reportedly shot by the suspect in a hotel hallway, Trump portrayed the incident as an attempted assassination.
There's a wrinkle that the conspiracy theorists will find hard to explain. The suspect didn't die. If he does in the next few days, that would give this group some serious ammunition.
more to come ...
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