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On the day that the Trump administration challenged ABC’s station licenses, Jimmy Kimmel had a message for President Donald Trump: The show goes on.

On Tuesday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the comedian did not refer to the news about the network’s parent company, Disney, coming under highly unusual scrutiny from the federal government.

Instead, the comedian 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.

During an arrival ceremony for the royals, Trump spoke Tuesday about his parents’ 63-year-marriage, turning to Melania and joking, “That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling, I’m sorry.”

Referencing the controversy around comments he made last week about the first lady, Kimmel playfully asked the 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.

• Source: CNN ” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/119173-kimmelrespondsmelaniajoke-digvid.jpg?c=16×9” }, “small”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/119173-kimmelrespondsmelaniajoke-digvid.jpg?c=16×9″ } }” data-vr-video=”false” data-show-html=”” data-byline-html=”

By

Elex Michaelson

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PUBLISHED Apr 29, 2026, 1:02 AM ET

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What Kimmel said about Melania and why Trump wants him fired

1:47 • Source: CNN

What Kimmel said about Melania and why Trump wants him fired

1:47

Disney has been standing by Kimmel while the president, his wife and his aides push to get him fired from ABC.

The FCC’s directive to Disney on Tuesday made no mention of Kimmel, and instead suggested that the license challenge is related to an ongoing FCC investigation of Disney’s diversity initiatives, which Trump opposes.

But the order that Disney must start trying to renew its station licenses – years ahead of schedule – is widely seen as an act of retaliation.

Disney responded by saying that it has been operating “in full compliance with FCC rules” and will “show that through the appropriate legal channels.” The company’s statement invoked the First Amendment, signaling it is willing to fight.

Experts say Disney would likely win that fight if the government tries to revoke the eight licenses the company holds. The protracted legal process for licensing could drag on for years.

“I’m glad to see that Disney is going to push back, because it has the First Amendment on its side,” the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront.”

The controversy has intensified public interest in Kimmel’s anti-Trump commentary. Monday night’s monologue racked up more than four million views in less than 24 hours.

All of the interest stems from Kimmel’s comment on last Thursday’s episode about the first lady looking like an “expectant widow.”

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel said during Monday night’s show, in response to the criticism. (Donald Trump is 79; Melania Trump is 56).

In the wake of the shooting outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last Saturday, Trump allies have loudly denounced Kimmel and accused him of wanting to get the president killed, a charge he has rejected.

“It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination,” Kimmel said in Monday’s monologue. “And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.”

Some Trump-boosting podcasters and influencers cheered the FCC’s aggressiveness on Tuesday. But other conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz, objected to the heavy hand of government approach. “It’s not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers made similar statements on Tuesday, with some, like Senator Ed Markey, calling the FCC move “authoritarian censorship.”

Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the action against ABC is part of a broader attempt by Trump to “consolidate control over what Americans see and hear on the radio, television, and social media.”

If Trump gets his way, Jaffer said, “we’ll have only government-aligned media organizations that broadcast only government-approved news and commentary. It would be difficult to imagine an outcome more corrosive to democracy or more offensive to the First Amendment.”

CNN’s Alex Stambaugh contributed to this report.

The passports are part of broader plans to celebrate the milestone anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence.

United States President Donald Trump will feature on a new, limited-edition US passport being issued to mark the country’s 250th anniversary in July, officials said, the latest area of public life to receive Trump’s personal branding.

The commemorative passports are part of broader plans to celebrate the milestone anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, with events planned across the country next July.

Images released by the White House and the Department of State on Tuesday show Trump’s portrait incorporated into the design, set against elements of the Declaration of Independence and the US flag. The rendering also includes the president’s signature in gold.

Another page will feature an illustration of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence.

“As the United States marks its 250th anniversary in July, the State Department is preparing to release a limited number of specially designed US passports to commemorate this historic occasion,” said Tommy Piggott, a spokesperson for the US State Department.

The commemorative passports will be available to US citizens applying through the Washington Passport Agency, with distribution set to begin this summer and continue while supplies last.

Current US passports feature images tied to the country’s history and identity. The inside front cover shows a painting of Francis Scott Key after the Battle of Fort McHenry, when he saw the US flag still standing after an attack. This moment inspired him to write a poem that later became the US national anthem, with lines from it printed alongside the image.

Other pages include moments from American history, such as the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and symbols like the Statue of Liberty.

Trump links branding push to 250th anniversary plans

The passport redesign is the latest example of efforts by Trump and his administration to place his name, image or signature on institutions and initiatives across Washington and the country.

Some of those efforts have already been implemented. This year’s national park passes, for example, display Trump’s image alongside George Washington, a departure from the programme’s traditional focus on natural landscapes.

The United States Mint has also released draft designs for a $1 coin featuring Trump’s profile as part of the 250th anniversary commemorations.

Proposed imagery for the coin redesign includes his portrait alongside inscriptions such as “Liberty” and “In God We Trust”. The reverse depicts him raising a clenched fist in front of an American flag with the phrase “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT”, referencing a chant he used after a 2024 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump has pushed Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer to rename New York’s Penn Station after him, linking the idea to the release of federal infrastructure funding, but the effort has failed to gain traction.

Trump has also placed his face on government buildings around Washington, DC, in the form of long banners.

Even the architecture of the US capital city is changing to reflect his tastes: Last October, he tore down the White House’s East Wing to build a massive ballroom, and he has plans to build a triumphal arch in the capital, similar to the one in Paris, France.

In December, Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, just one day after his hand-picked board members controversially voted to rename the art venue, the first time a national institution has been named after a sitting US president.

Within days, workers had added metal lettering to the building’s exterior, renamed as “The Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”.

The acting US ambassador to Ukraine will step down from her post after less than a year in the job, the state department has said, amid a lull in US-brokered efforts to achieve a ceasefire and end Russia’s invasion.

Julie Davis had grown frustrated with president Donald Trump over his lack of support for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported, quoting unnamed sources. The state department denied any such disagreements took place and said she was retiring.

Trump has been pressuring Kyiv to reach a peace deal with Russia, saying the country could cede territory to secure an agreement. The president has so far has failed to bring the war to an end through ceasefire talks which have now largely stalled as Washington has concentrated its focus on the Iran war.

“It is false to suggest Ambassador Davis is resigning ‘over differences with Donald Trump,’” state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said. “She will continue to proudly advance President Trump’s policies until she officially departs Kyiv in June 2026 and retires from the department,” he said.

Davis, the top US embassy official is the charge d’affaires but not a Senate-confirmed ambassador. She has also been serving as the US ambassador to Cyprus since 2023, operating a dual role during her time in Kyiv.

She was named by the Trump administration in May last year after her predecessor, fellow career diplomat Bridget Brink, stepped down.

Brink, who had been appointed by then President Joe Biden and is now running as a Democrat for Congress, said that she had grown alarmed by Trump’s “appeasement” of Russia and how he “put pressure on the victim, Ukraine.”

Since assuming office in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly assigned blame to Ukraine for Russia’s invasion of the country more than four years ago and has had a tumultuous relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

President Donald Trump’s budget office sent a memo to Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening urging House Republicans to agree to partly reopen the Department of Homeland Security – even without new cash for immigration enforcement.

The existence of the memo, which was confirmed by a person familiar with its contents, could amount to a major development in the monthslong impasse around DHS funding.

Trump officials are now telling House Republicans to accept a compromise measure from the Senate, which does not include money for ICE or border patrol, to ensure that workers do not go unpaid. Many House Republicans have so far refused to pass any DHS funding without simultaneously approving another funding bill for ICE.

The pressure from the White House comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to say whether he will put that partial, Senate-passed DHS funding bill on the floor this week before the House leaves for a weeklong recess.

The speaker told CNN on Monday that legislation has “some problematic language because it was haphazardly drafted,” indicating House Republicans want technical changes to the package.

Resolving the 73-day shutdown – already the longest in history – has proved a steep task for Johnson, and the issue has further divided his already fractious House GOP.

The party is bitterly split with conservatives furious that Senate Majority Leader John Thune agreed to Democratic demands to only partially fund the department. In response, House Republicans are scrambling to pass a separate – and legislatively complex – package focused on funding immigration enforcement and border patrol without Democratic support.

Johnson previously indicated that he would not take up the partial DHS funding bill until House Republicans take a separate vote teeing up that complicated process, known as budget reconciliation, which is expected to take weeks.

The memo from the budget office, which Punchbowl News first reported, comes as the delay in funding has raised concerns with some of the GOP’s national security hawks, who worry that the Department of Homeland Security will out of money within days. (The White House had temporarily paid some key staff, including the Transportation Security Administration, using a rainy day fund, but that is almost dry.)

Those Republicans have warned that the House needs to act on the Senate-passed bill as soon as possible – and certainly before the chamber leaves next week for recess.

But even if Johnson were to bring the bill to the floor, it could still face steep odds.

A senior House Republican told CNN on Tuesday that the votes simply don’t exist to partly end the DHS shutdown this week without having money “in hand” for federal immigration enforcement.

“No one is going to vote to fund Homeland without money for ICE and CBP,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, who leads the House Budget Committee.

The remarks from Arrington — a retiring Republican who is respected among the party’s ultraconservative wing — signify the massive road block that Congress is facing to end the shutdown.

US President Donald Trump is quickly approaching a deadline to wrap up his war against Iran – or he’ll be in breach of US law.

Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a US president can only launch a war without congressional approval for 60 days. After that, Congress either has to declare or authorise the war – or the president must end the operations.

Even though there is currently a ceasefire between the US and Iran, the resolution would still apply to the naval troops and ships responsible for maintaining the US blockade of Iranian ports.

So, what happens if the 60-day deadline passes and Trump refuses to pull out?

What is the War Powers Resolution?

The War Powers Resolution was passed by Congress over then-President Richard Nixon’s veto in November 1973. It was a major piece of legislation designed to curb presidential usurpation of the congressional power to declare war. It came just after the withdrawal of US troops from the Vietnam War, which had not been authorised by Congress.

The law hasn’t been very successful since its passage because of its loose legal language, the numerous exceptions and qualifications, and the large number of loopholes that presidents and their advisers have discovered.

Certainly, no president since Nixon has been significantly constrained by the law. Those who have initiated conflicts without congressional approval have paid little more than lip service to its provisions.

Congress has also contributed to the failure of the War Powers Resolution through its reluctance to defend its constitutional and statutory rights to declare war.

Notwithstanding its past ineffectiveness, it may be premature to write off the War Powers Resolution in the current conflict. The main reason: it provides a mechanism for wary Republican lawmakers to try to bring an end to an unpopular war.

What does the law say?

The statutory end-date for the war comes into effect by way of two sections of the War Powers Resolution.

Under section 4, the president is required to submit a report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing US troops into “hostilities” and explain the constitutional and legislative authority under which the action was taken, the justification for the action, and the estimated scope and duration of the US involvement.

This triggers a 60-day clock under section 5 of the law. If Congress has not declared or authorised the war by then – or extended the deadline – the president must end the military action.

The beauty of this provision, at least as far as members of Congress are concerned, is that it is automatic. Legislators don’t have to do anything to implement it. And because no vote is necessary, they don’t have to go on record opposing the president’s military and national security policy.

Trump submitted his report on the war with Iran on March 2, which means the 60-day deadline expires on May 1.

So far, Congress has not responded by declaring or authorising the war, though Republicans have blocked numerous Democratic legislative efforts to end the war or constrain Trump’s ability to act without congressional approval.

Congress also has the option of extending the 60-day limit for a maximum of 30 days. This would require a vote in both the House and Senate.

Republicans are growing uneasy

The major difference between this war against Iran and other wars of recent US presidents is that this one is going extremely badly for Trump.

A new poll by Reuters and Ipsos this week found that just 34% of Americans support the US conflict with Iran.

This time, there has been no “rally-around-the-flag” effect supporting Trump’s military incursion. Members of Congress, ultra-sensitive to their constituents’ opinion, are not running scared of opposing Trump on this issue, either. Many would be risking electoral backlash by going on the record in support of the war.

Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah, for example, has written an essay saying he will not support the war after the 60-day deadline passes without congressional approval. Other Republicans have echoed his sentiments.

Given his general contempt for the Constitution and statute law, Trump will probably disregard the legal mandate to withdraw US troops. He is more likely to claim that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional, as Nixon did when he vetoed it in 1973. As such, he may seek to challenge the law through the courts.

So, what happens if Trump does ignore the deadline? This depends on how members of Congress react. Democrats are reportedly exploring a lawsuit against the administration, though this has proven difficult to do in the past.

Trump could also claim the law doesn’t apply because US forces are not currently engaged in direct hostilities in Iran, as then-President Barack Obama did when the 60-day clock lapsed during the US military operations in Libya in 2011.

When Trump sent formal notification to Congress on March 2, he made a point of saying he was acting under his “constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive”, neither of which give him the power to commit the US to war without congressional approval.

He did not acknowledge the War Powers Resolution except to say that his report was “consistent with” it – a standard form of wording used by his predecessors who have all demonstrated some reluctance to adhere to its provisions.

In the past, when presidents and Congress have clashed over the War Powers Resolution, they have usually reached some accommodation, but it has depended on the circumstances and often favours the president.

This time it could be different. Trump is badly managing an unpopular war with wafer-thin majorities in Congress, six months out from the midterm election.

If US troops are still engaged in the Middle East on May 1, the War Powers Resolution could take on a relevance it hasn’t had for more than 50 years.