During The Joe Rogan Experience episode #2493, host Joe Rogan and guests Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ali Shaffir briefly discussed the controversy surrounding Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about Melania Trump, focusing on the timing of the backlash.
Normand opened by saying, “I don’t love the… the Kimmel s**t is annoying. Like the figh ting with Kimmel over the jokes. Like come on, man.”
Rogan then referenced Adam Carolla’s breakdown of the timeline. Kimmel had staged a mock White House Correspondents’ Dinner and joked, “Melania has the glow of a woman who’s recently widowed.”
According to Joe Rogan, the joke aired on a Thursday and initially drew little attention, only gaining traction after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump that Saturday night, when critics on the right began resurfacing it.
Expanding on Adam Carolla’s timeline, Rogan said, “Adam Carolla had a really good point. He said that joke on a Thursday. On Friday, nobody gave a f**k. Kimmel said a joke about Melania. He made his own mock White House press correspondents dinner and he said Melania has the glow of a woman who’s recently widowed. Okay. Just that’s it.”
Mark Normand offered his interpretation of the joke, saying, “It’s an old guy joke like he’s going to d*e soon.”
Rogan responded, “Yeah, it could be. Or an assassination joke if you want to take it that way.”
When someone asked whether the joke came after the assassination attempt, Rogan clarified that it did not.
Reiterating Carolla’s point, he said, “No, before. So it’s on Thursday. And this is Carolla’s point. It’s a really good point. He said no one gave a f**k on Friday. It came out on Thursday. No one cared on Friday. No one cared on Saturday until Saturday night when the assassination attempt and then all a sudden everyone’s blaming Kimmel.”
Guest Ari Shaffir used the moment to highlight what he sees as a pattern across political lines. “It’s so funny that the right-wing turned into the same f**king p**sy fa**ot like the left-wing.”
Rogan continued, framing it as a recurring human tendency rather than a purely ideological issue: “It’s human behavior patterns. You could call them left or right. I mean, this is why the left supports war in Ukraine. It’s like why the left supports censorship. It’s like the same patterns. It’s control. Control and power,” he said.
When asked whether it ultimately comes down to people wanting their side to win, Rogan agreed without hesitation: “Yeah, 100%,” he said.
