George Clooney defends Jimmy Kimmel widow joke as Trump calls for him to be fired

Acting heartthrob George Clooney has defended comedian Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made parodying the White House Correspondents' Dinner, while also attacking the political violence that cut it short.

On Monday evening, the Oceans 11 star spoke to an audience about the response to the latest attempt on President Trump's life, which took place at the glitzy annual dinner for the White House press corps.

With some on the right of politics calling for everything but Kimmel's head over a divisive joke he made, Clooney pointed out that there was a fair amount of hypocrisy coming from the administration.

Especially as Press Secretary Leavitt had said beforehand 'there will be some shots fired tonight in the room'. Speaking at the 51st Chaplin Award Gala, Clooney said: “Jimmy’s a comedian, and I would argue that Karoline Leavitt didn’t mean shots should be fired."

Clooney added: “She was making a joke. Fair enough. You look at that side and go, ’Well, jokes are jokes.’ But the rhetoric is a little dangerous. And we’ve seen it a lot lately.”

He went on to say that bombastic rhetoric 'can be toned down', adding: "When one side is calling anyone they disagree with traitors to the country, which is a charge that’s punishable by death, just because they don’t agree with someone, I think the rhetoric is a little too heated.”

Speaking at the fundraising dinner, the O Brother, Where Art Thou? actor denounced the continued trend of political violence in the country.

He said: “I disagree with everything that this administration stands for, but there’s no place for the kind of violence we saw two nights ago in Washington, D.C. Nor is there a room for this kind of violence in Minnesota with Alex Pretti or Renée Good."

He added: “It seems to me there’s a struggle that has to be won against hatred and corruption and cruelty and violence.”

Kimmel may need a Hollywood heavyweight fighting in his corner, as if the alleged assassin had reached the president, he would be in even deeper trouble.

At his alternative parody gala address, played on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the talk show host delivered a monologue to a fake audience that included the president and First Lady Melania Trump.

He made a ribald quip about 79-year-old Trump's advance age, but then he said something eerily prophetic a week before 31-year-old teacher Cole Tomas Allen allegedly dashed through security with a pump action shotgun and a .38 caliber handgun.

Turning to Melania, he said: "You have a glow like an expectant widow."

Responding to the joke after the attempted assassination, the first lady called the remarks 'hateful and violent', with the White House urging ABC to fire Kimmel. However the comedian said he was doing a 'light roast' about their age difference.

He said: "It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination and they know that, I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular.

"I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject, I think a great place to start to dial that back is having a conversation with your husband about it."