An MRC Attack Taken Out Of Context

The Media Research Center has long despised Jimmy Kimmel, and it continues to hate him. Comedy cop Alex Christy kept up his complaints about Kimmel in an April 24 post:

Due to the fact that Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner will not feature a comedian, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel took it upon himself to do his own roast of Republicans on his Thursday show, which was like every other episode of his show, but with more quick one-liners. As he concluded, Kimmel went off the deep end as he appeared to make a gay rape joke about FCC Chairman Brenden Carr and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Kimmel referenced his September suspension that also won him a Peabody on Thursday, “Alright, I’m almost out of time. Brendan Carr is giving me the light. Brendan Carr is the head of the FCC. Back in September he tried to get my affiliates to throw me off the air. He said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ Same thing he said to Lindsey Graham ten minutes ago in the all-gender restroom.”

[…]

Kimmel concluded with a sarcastic ode to President Trump, “What a night. You guys have been so great. In all seriousness, I do want to thank the president. We are the hottest country in the world right now, and that’s all because of you, sir. You truly are the GOAT, and a monkey, and a pig. You made America great again, and you made comedy great again, and that is why I am—I’m very proud to announce the winner of the inaugural Burger King of Comedy Gold Award goes to none other than our president, Donald J. Leno Trump. Congratulations, sir. And thank you. Thank you all.”

If you did not find a casual reference to rape funny and think he should be better, Kimmel would advise you to shut up and stop telling him how to do his job.

Christy did not explain the context in which Kimmel and others are supposed to take Carr’s remark. But after an attempted shooting at the WHCD, Jorge Bonilla launched a new attack on that address in an April 26 post:

Many are calling for a re-examination of political rhetoric in the wake of yet another attempted assassination attempt against President Donald Trump (and, for the first time, members of his Cabinet). But will this call for self-examination trickle down to the darkest corners of the Elitist Media? That remains to be seen.

As you now know, late night Resistance Comic Jimmy Kimmel did a mock White House Correspondents’ Dinner monologue- in a manner similar to Jen Psaki’s bit where she does fake news conferences on MS NOW. Our own Alex Christy took a look at one of Kimmel’s gags- a crass gay rape joke directed targeting FCC Chair Brendan Carr. Here’s another “joke” that needs to be examined in the wake of the shooting:

JIMMY KIMMEL: Our First Lady Melania is here. Look at Mel- so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.

So edgy. So Resistancey. Yet another low for a blackface-wearing bigot reading unfunny “jokes” written by his wife.

As Bonilla well knows, that joke did not foreshadow any act of violence, given that Kimmel could not have possibly known what would happen at the WHCD. Still, he huffed: “Kimmel’s corny bit begs the question: at what point does The Walt Disney Corporation address its role in fomenting the current climate of political violence?” He added: “The Elitist Media SAY that they are concerned about political discourse and the promotion of political violence, but DO otherwise.”

Joining a CNSNews propaganda piece by Craig Bannister featuring Melania Trump denouncing that remark, Tim Graham went on a tirade in an April 27 post:

CNN host Jake Tapper is a repeat guest on the late-night comedy shows on all the broadcast networks. These fiercely anti-Trump comedians are his pals. Last year, Tapper became especially fierce in defending Jimmy Kimmel’s vicious lie that Charlie Kirk’s killer was a Trump fan.

Tapper hosted an hour-long CNN special titled No Laughing Matter: Free Speech Under Attack. Tapper falsely claimed in that special that Kimmel “wasn’t calling the shooter MAGA.” He told NBC’s Seth Meyers that Kimmel’s suspension was “pretty much the most direct infringement by the government on free speech that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” (That’s not counting the free speech of Charlie Kirk.)

On Monday’s The Lead, Tapper crusaded for Kimmel again after he was condemned by Melania Trump, followed by President Trump again calling on ABC to dump Kimmel after he created a fake Correspondents Dinner routine on Thursday night where he said to Melania: “So beautiful, Mrs. Trump. You have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Tapper lamented “what was perhaps inevitable that the Trump administration would try to use Saturday’s horrific act of violence to try to clamp down on criticism and free speech.” In other words, Tapper didn’t object to Kimmel’s joke half as much as to criticism from the Trumps.

When Tapper pointed out that Kimmel made his remark before the dinner and, thus, the alleged shooter could not have been inspired by it, Graham whined: “It’s somehow unfair to judge Kimmel after the fact. Wasn’t it easy to judge Kimmel as a crude jerk before Saturday night? Is Tapper incapable of imagining that he wouldn’t like a ‘joke’ about Dead Jake Tapper and his beautiful widow?” He continued to rant:

Ultimately, Tapper thinks the attempted censorship is worse than the crude talk of Trump being murdered: “It is a big problem of calls for violence and dehumanization, and it’s getting worse. But it is not a problem to be wielded like a cudgel to try to stop journalism or jokes. Journalism and jokes are not calls for violence, calls for violence are calls for violence, and far too many Americans in positions of power and influence are too blasé and too glib about those who make them.”

If there is ANYONE who is too blase and glib right now about violent talk like Trump being killed, it’s Jimmy Kimmel. Journalism and jokes CAN be dehumanizing. Just because the “establishment” does it doesn’t make it right.

Graham refused to mention that, as even right-wing comedian Adam Carolla pointed out at Newsmax, Kimmel’s joke was taken out of context, given that it was made before the WHCD. And he didn’t mention that his own comedy cop didn’t even mention the joke during his writeup of the speech.

When Kimmel himself made that same point, Christy played comedy cop again in an April 28 post:

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel tried to defend himself on Monday after receiving “another Twitter vomit storm” over the weekend after his Friday joke about First Lady glowing like an expectant widow aged like unrefrigerated cheese after a California man tried to assassinate President Trump at Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner. Kimmel tried to say the joke was merely about Donald and Melania’s age differences, but that would be hard to square with Kimmel’s history of Melania jokes.

Kimmel began by recapping how, since the WHCD would not feature a comedian, he did his own roast routine, “And there was no big reaction to it until this morning when I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm. And a call to fire me from our First Lady Melania Trump saying I should be fired because of a joke I made, again, five nights ago. It was a pretend roast. I said, ‘Our First Lady Melania’s here, look at her, so beautiful, Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.’”

He added, “Which obviously was a joke about their age difference. And the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence, in particular.”

The second sentence is Kimmel unwittingly telling on himself. A good amount of late night’s jokes about Melania—of which Kimmel is by far the leader—are based around the idea that Donald and Melania do not actually love each other and that she actually finds him repulsive. Even if one grants that Kimmel wasn’t talking about violence or assassination, it is not outrageous to say he was alluding to Trump’s death, especially given all the jokes Kimmel likes to tell about Trump’s diet. Even in that spoof WHCD routine, Kimmel gave Trump the Burger King award, a reference to both his like of fast food and alleged monarchial tendencies. From being a “very light roast,” that routine also featured gay rape jokes about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Senator Lindsey Graham.

Yes, Christy managed to find Kimmel guilty through hindsight. He concluded with a (metaphorical) body count:

On an average night, Kimmel tells between 20 and 30 jokes about conservatives. On Friday, his fake WHCD routine led him to tell 57 total jokes—the second most in any single show since NewsBusters started keeping track—and not a single one was about a Democrat because poking fun at the “people in power” really means “Republicans in power.”

Yes, Christy is counting jokes Kimmel makes at the expense of his side. Sad, isn’t it?

That lack of context surfaced again in an April 28 post by Mark Finkelstein:

On Tuesday’s Morning Joe , the panel rode to the defense of Jimmy Kimmel, embracing his claim that his “expectant widow” line about Melania Trump was merely an age-gap “joke”— then turning on Donald Trump and the First Lady for objecting.

[…]

Kimmel insisted the remark was harmless:

“It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am… It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination.”

Morning Joe bought that framing wholesale. Co-host Willie Geist dismissed the backlash as “so much bad faith,” suggesting critics were simply trying to get Kimmel fired.

Host Joe Scarborough sneered at the reaction as “such crocodile tears.” He said “crocodile tears” three times.

Finkelstein refused to admit that Kimmel told his joke before the White House Correspondents Dinner tookplace, so it could not possibly have been about what happened there. Instead, he ranted:

Mika Brzezinski tried to normalize Kimmel’s crack by noting there have been jokes over the years about Joe Biden’s age. That comparison doesn’t hold. Age jokes are one thing; calling Melania an “expectant widow” is another category entirely.

Back in 2017, did anyone tell Mika to stop the “crocodile tears” and just accept Trump talking about her “bleeding facelift” as a moment for freedom of speech?

The double standard is glaring. If a conservative comedian had called Dr. Jill an “expectant widow,” Morning Joe and the liberal media at large would have been up in arms.

Curtis Houck did much the same a couple hours later:

Monday’s Inside Politics featured CNN host and congressional Republican stalker Manu Raju offering a despicable minimization of political violence on the left with a horrendously misleading graphic painting both sides as equally victimized and a guest accusing anyone who says the left has a problem of “cherry pick[ing]” while Trump has encouraged and “glorified violence.” And, when it came to ABC host Jimmy Kimmel’s vile smear last week wishing death on President Trump, another panelist defended Kimmel by arguing the First Lady and President didn’t immediately speak out.

[…]

They went to break by defending Kimmel with Raju dubbing the former’s “expectant widow” remark toward the First Lady as simply a “crack….when he was speaking, pretending like he was giving a speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner.”

Houck offered no evidence that Kimmel was “wishing death on President Trump” given, again, that the remark was made before the WHCD.

Houck continued to fail to understand the context of Kimmel’s remark in another post later that day:

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[.]”

We suspect that “the great Bonchie” didn’t point out that the Obama daughters were teenagers at the time, while Melania Trump is a grown woman — nor did he bring up the full context of Kimmel’s remark. Meanwhile, Houck continued to deny that context, even as he got mad that others noted it:

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.

Houck didn’t dispute the accuracy of Kimmel’s response. Christy returned to comedy-cop mode in an April 29 post:

On Tuesday, President Trump joked about his old age during an event with King Charles, which greatly upset ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel because, according to him, that is the same he did on Thursday that led the Trumps to call for his firing on Monday. Of course, they were not the same because Trump didn’t suggest Melania is looking forward to his death.

Kimmel began by introducing a clip of Trump, “Trump was very excited about hosting the king, and a lot of it is because Trump’s mom was a great fan of the royal family.”

In the video, Trump was shown declaring, “My wonderful mother, Mary MacLeod… She came to America at 19, met my incredible father. We loved him so much. We all loved him. We loved her. We loved him. Fred and—they were married for 63 years, and excuse me, if you don’t mind. That’s a record we won’t be able to match, darling. I’m sorry. Just not going to work out that way.”

Afterwards, Kimmel reacted, “Wait a minute. Did he just make a joke about his death? My god. He should be fired for that.”

Raising his voice quite a bit, Kimmel continued, “Only Donald Trump would demand I be fired for making a joke about his old age, and then a day later, go out and make a joke about his own old age.”

The two jokes were not the same. Trump’s joke could be summarized as “I’m old.” For Donald and Melania to reach 63 years of marriage, he would have to get to his 121st birthday in 2068. By contrast, Kimmel’s “expectant widow” remark could be summarized as “Melania hates her husband and is looking forward to his death.”

Christy did not disprove that sentiment — but at least he appeared to agree that it was not the death threat his co-workers falsely insist it was.

The MRC couldn’t stop being mad about Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Melania Trump — or taking it out of context. Craig Bannister served up an April 28 CNSNews propaganda piece:

Liberal journalist Geraldo Rivera sprung to support the First Lady’s condemnation of Jimmy Kimmel’s ominous, hateful comments regarding her and her family on his late-night television show prior to the assassination attempt on her husband’s life Saturday at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Bannister didn’t explain why, exactly, he was insisting that Rivera is a “liberal,” given that he worked for right-wing Fox News for a couple of decades.

The next day, Nicholas Spinnato groused:

In the opening segment of Tuesday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish and her panel defended Jimmy Kimmel’s “expectant widow” comments and also discussed the aftermath of the third Trump assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The panel blamed Trump as the reason for the political violence, which Cornish called the debate over violence and rhetoric “nonsensical” after she played a clip of Charlamagne tha God.

One panelist, The Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Rodriguez, even echoed the words of Jimmy Kimmel from Monday night, where the late-night host told Melania Trump to tell her husband to tone down his rhetoric amid the violence against him.

[…]

After she framed the Republican views, she played a clip from Charlamagne tha God where Charlamagne said, “Whenever there is some type of political violence that happens that, you know, one of these events, people always say, so are we going to tone down the violent rhetoric towards Trump? Stop it. Like, I’m sick of that narrative.”

The radio host then said the question about rhetoric needed to be directed to Trump as he said, “‘Hey, Trump, it’s clear that you’re the drama.”

Pure victim blaming.

Spinnato didn’t explain why it’s “victim blaming” to point out that Trump has a history of using violent rhetoric. He also failed to explain why he took Kimmel’s comment out of context and not explaining that it came before the dinner and, thus, could not have been a death threat.

Spinnato followed up by promoting an MRC board member:

During Monday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish and panelist Antjuan Seawright teamed up on Terry Schilling, director of the American Principles Project and member of the Media Research Center’s board of directors, in an attempt to call Schilling and other conservatives anti-free speech for opposing rhetoric that could incite violence.

Schilling mentioned the Biden-era DOJ’s investigations of parents at school board meetings and noted how the TV networks were pro-Biden. Seawright and Cornish denied it and falsely said TV networks did not treat Biden with “loving care.”

Cornish questions were framed in a way that painted conservatives against free speech amid the Jimmy Kimmel “expectant widow” controversy. Schilling said Kimmel was “playing a game” to get “as close to that line as possible to cause controversy, to get more eyeballs.”

Spinnato failed to explain just how conservatives are not opposed to free speech or how networks gave the kid-glove treatment to Biden aside from noting that “Schilling pointed out the obvious of the media cover-up of Biden’s senility and faltering mental capacities: ‘Oh, please. We were told that Joe Biden was at the height of his game. While he’s clearly suffering from Dementia.’”

Spinnato went on to whine: “As the media’s defense of Kimmel’s ‘expectant widow’ comment has grown, Democrats have seemingly grown to have a different tone on free speech if they need to defend a liberal late-night host.”

The MRC’s nepo-baby leader then appeared on the radio show of the MRC’s favorite CNN right-winger, Scott Jennings, where he ranted about “Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night attacks” and added: “Bozell concluded by warning that as long as networks like ABC continue to mainstream narratives that label political opponents as ‘pedophiles, rapists, and traitors,’ the cycle of violence will only escalate. The takeaway is clear: the elitist media aren’t just reporting on the political violence; they are the ones feeding it.” Bozell did not call out similarly violent rhetoric by his fellow right-wingers.