Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested on Tuesday that First Lady Melania Trump issued her public statement criticizing Jimmy Kimmel without running it by the president.

Days before Saturday’s shooting at White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Kimmel did a mock roast of President Donald Trump and his administration, including the first lady.

“Our First Lady Melania is here,” he said. “Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Many figures on the right, including those within the Trump administration, were quick to jump on Kimmel’s remark as a call to harm the president, after Cole Tomas Allen opened fire at the Washington Hilton and was later charged with attempting to assassinate Trump.

One of the first to call out the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host was Melania Trump, who called Kimmel’s remarks “hateful and violent rhetoric” in a statement on Monday.

“Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. 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,” she said. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

Trump was quick to follow with his own attacks on Kimmel, going so far as to urge that he be fired by his show’s network over his “despicable call to violence.”

Speaking on Tuesday’s edition of The Five, Kilmeade said he believed that Melania’s statement was made without prior discussion with Trump, claiming her statement was the reason Kimmel’s remark received such widespread attention.

“The one thing, the reason why I think this got to be big news is because Melania Trump doesn’t complain about anything,” he said. “So when someone who never loses it posts online, I don’t think she checked with the president, personally, and just posts online, ‘This is ridiculous, got to be fired, ABC has been covering for him, I cannot believe he had that joke,’ and people came back and said, ‘Well, why didn’t you say something Thursday?’ Because she doesn’t watch him. There’s not a person who likes Donald Trump who would ever watch Jimmy Kimmel in a million years.”

Kilmeade later expanded on his point, claiming, “Melania acted like a human being who felt like she could have been killed and her husband could have been killed, so that’s what got everyone’s attention.”

Kimmel responded to the first lady on Monday’s edition of his show, calling his remark “a joke about their age difference” before urging Melania Trump to discuss her concerns about hateful rhetoric with her husband.

“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do,” he said. “And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it, because, by the way, I also should point out Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as you are you, as am I, as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have a right, as Americans, to free speech.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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