Donald and Melania Trump are pressuring ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a joke they didn't like.
Let's be clear: that's not accountability. That's an attempt to bully a network into silencing a critic.
On his show last week — before the dinner incident — Kimmel joked that Melania had the "glow" of an "expectant widow," a line aimed at widely reported concerns about Donald Trump's age and health. It wasn't a threat. It wasn't a call to violence. It was satire — the kind late-night comedians have used for decades to hold powerful people up to the light.
The Trumps have every right to be offended. They can criticize Kimmel all they want.
But demanding he be fired — and backing that demand with the implied power of a federal government that regulates broadcast networks — crosses a dangerous line. That's not free speech. That's political pressure aimed at censorship.
If media companies start folding every time a powerful politician gets angry, then criticism becomes risky… and silence becomes the safer option.
ABC must not cave.
Tell ABC: "Don't Let Trump Silence Jimmy Kimmel"
