In a surprising turn of events, conservative commentator Candace Owens has come to the defense of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, despite her ongoing feud with President Donald Trump. During a livestream on her YouTube channel Tuesday, Owens addressed the backlash against Kimmel following a joke he made about First Lady Melania Trump.
Owens Criticizes Trump's Hypocrisy
Owens began by noting that the left's criticism of Kimmel as hateful and violent was hypocritical, given that Trump and his allies have often used similar rhetoric. She pointed out that Trump himself has a history of making controversial jokes and then dismissing them as not serious.
"This tweet about the left's rhetoric pertaining to Jimmy Kimmel — referring to him as hateful and violent — I got to stop you right there because this feels a little bit like people in glass houses," Owens said.
The Joke and the Incident
Last Thursday, Kimmel joked that Melania Trump had "a glow like an expectant widow" during a parody of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Two days later, a man opened fire outside the official dinner before being arrested. The Trumps were present but unharmed.
On Monday, Melania Trump demanded that ABC fire Kimmel, calling his rhetoric "hateful and violent." President Trump echoed the call, accusing Kimmel of issuing a "call to violence."
Owens implied that linking the assassination attempt to Kimmel's joke was a stretch and that the administration was more concerned with attacking the First Amendment. "They are trying to assert that it's actually Jimmy Kimmel's joke that is to blame for the White House Correspondents' incident," she said.
Owens' Own Feud with Trump
The defense of Kimmel comes amid a heated dispute between Owens and Trump. The president recently called Owens "crazy" and mocked her conspiracy theory that France's first lady, Brigitte Macron, is a man. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Owens was "really dumb and mentally ill" and that the Macrons would win their defamation lawsuit against her.
Owens responded by mocking Trump's punctuation, asking why her name was in quotation marks. The feud has been brewing for weeks, with Trump slamming Owens for criticizing the war in Iran.
Despite her dislike for Kimmel, Owens argued that Trump's reaction was hypocritical. "Trump would make a joke about something and then they'd all get out and pretend it was super serious," she said. "They're doing the thing where they pretend that a joke is existential."
