Jimmy Kimmel — the brave, edgy comedian who delivers his zingers from behind a desk protected by armed security on a Disney-owned television network — decided it would be hilarious to tell the world that First Lady Melania Trump has “a glow like an expectant widow.”

Days later, a gunman opened fire in the lobby of the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But sure, Jimmy. Real funny stuff.

We need to talk about this, because the timeline here is absolutely chilling. Kimmel knew he’d never be invited to the White House Correspondent’s Dinner so he taped a little parody monologue so he could get his two-cents in on the President and First Lady. He looked into the camera and told millions of viewers that the First Lady of the United States looks like a woman waiting for her husband to die mere days before a deranged leftist from California tried to make that a reality. Then, at the real dinner on Saturday night, a suspect identified as Cole Allen opened fire on Secret Service agents in the hotel lobby, wounding one of them. President Trump and the First Lady had to be rushed out of the building.

So Kimmel fantasized about Melania being a widow. And then someone showed up with a gun.

Now, we’re not saying Jimmy Kimmel is responsible for the shooting. We’re saying that when you spend years normalizing violent rhetoric against a sitting president and his family — when you make assassination the punchline — you don’t get to act shocked when unstable people take the next step. You built this, Jimmy. You and every other late-night hack who turned “wouldn’t it be great if Trump was gone” into a nightly bit.

Melania, to her enormous credit, didn’t mince words. She called Kimmel “a coward” hiding behind ABC and posted publicly: “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.” She asked how many more times ABC’s leadership would “enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior.”

Great question. How many times?

Because this isn’t Kimmel’s first rodeo with this particular brand of garbage. Back in September, the FCC chair had to publicly pressure ABC to pull Kimmel off the air after he made comments about the assassination attempt on conservative activist Charlie Kirk. ABC briefly suspended his show — briefly, as in they waited for the news cycle to pass and then put him right back on.

(Because nothing says “we take this seriously” like a two-week vacation and a fresh contract.)

Here’s what’s actually happening. Disney owns ABC. ABC employs Kimmel. Disney is a publicly traded corporation that answers to shareholders. And yet somehow, this corporation has decided that repeatedly flirting with assassination humor targeting the President of the United States is good for business. They’ve made a calculated decision that the applause from the coastal elite audience is worth more than basic human decency.

And what did Disney and ABC say when the First Lady publicly demanded accountability? Nothing. They “did not immediately comment.”

Of course they didn’t. These are the same people who will lecture you about “words have consequences” every single time a conservative says something they don’t like. Remember when they blamed every act of violence in America on Trump’s “rhetoric”? Remember when a Bernie Sanders supporter literally shot up a congressional baseball practice and the media spent about 45 minutes on it before going back to blaming Trump for “divisiveness”?

The rules are simple, folks. When a conservative uses strong language, it’s “stochastic terrorism” and “incitement.” When a liberal comedian jokes about the First Lady being a widow right before someone tries to shoot up the dinner she’s attending — well, that’s just comedy. Lighten up.

We’re not lightening up.

Melania Trump has now survived multiple assassination attempts against her husband. She watched a bullet graze his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania. She’s had to explain to her son why people keep trying to kill his father. And now she has to watch a smirking comedian on network television joke about her “glowing” like a woman whose husband is about to be murdered — and then watch it nearly happen three days later.

Imagine being any other First Lady. Imagine if someone had said this about Michelle Obama. The comedian wouldn’t just lose their show — they’d lose their career, their agent, their friends, and probably their house. The entire entertainment industry would unite in righteous fury. There would be congressional statements. There would be hashtags.

But it’s Melania, so Disney can’t even be bothered to issue a press release.

Here’s the bottom line. ABC needs to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Not suspend him. Not “review the situation.” Fire him. Today. The man has joked about political assassination twice in eight months, and both times real-world violence followed. At some point, “it’s just comedy” stops being an excuse and starts being a liability — the legal kind.

And if Disney won’t do the right thing? Well, there are about 75 million Americans who vote with their wallets. Maybe it’s time they started canceling their Disney+ subscriptions instead of their principles.

Melania called him a coward. She’s right. A coward hides behind a corporation and calls it comedy. A coward punches down at a woman whose family has been targeted for assassination and then ducks behind his desk when someone asks him to answer for it.

Fire the coward, ABC. Or we’ll remember that you chose not to.