As token bills soar and IT budgets balloon, businesses are realizing that replacing workers with AI may not be the cost-cutting move they anticipated.
As token bills soar and IT budgets balloon, businesses are realizing that replacing workers with AI may not be the cost-cutting move they anticipated.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. ET
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O-I Glass (OI 1.56%) reported a drop in adjusted EPS but delivered operational results that exceeded internal targets, supported by shipment and cost-saving program gains. Management reaffirmed full-year guidance, highlighting improving free cash flow prospects and substantial progress on inventory reduction. The company remains exposed to European operational headwinds and potential tariff-driven volume risks but is structurally positioned to benefit from ongoing local market advantages and cost initiatives.
Gordon Hardie: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your interest in O-I Glass. Today, we will walk you through our first quarter of 2025 performance, key market trends and outlook for the rest of the year. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues at O-I across the world for their efforts in this first quarter and for their agility and focus on driving the changes needed to turn O-I around. Last night we reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.40 per share, while down from last year results significantly exceeded our plan due to stronger than anticipated sale volume and fit to win benefits.
Market conditions have continued to gradually recover and our shipments increased by more than 4% compared to last year. Additionally our Fit to Win program generated savings of $61 million, which was a significant contributor to our better than expected results. Strong demand and initiative benefits helped offset expected headwinds, including lower net price and scheduled temporary production curtailments. Looking at our business units segment operating profit improved significantly in the Americas reflecting healthier fundamentals and benefit from strategic initiatives. In Europe, results trended down giving lower net price and temporary production downtime which was partially mitigated by solid Fit to Win benefits.
Overall, we are off to a strong start this year and are successfully managing the elements within our control. As such we are reaffirming our full year 2025 guidance and expect adjusted earnings to improve between 50% and 85% from 2024. John will discuss our outlook further including an initial view on how changing global trade policies could affect the business. In summary then we are pleased with our year-to-date performance trend despite some anticipated lag in Europe and we aim to deliver robust financial performance throughout the year. Let’s now turn to page four to discuss current market trends. Overall, conditions continued to gradually improve and our shipments were up 4.4% in the first quarter.
Solid growth reflected some rebuilding of packaging inventories across the value chain, benefits from recent contract negotiations supported by multi-year cost improvement plans and likely some advanced purchases ahead of new tariff policies. Shipments were up more than 4% across the Americas. Here we see inventory normalization overall as well as more structural demand improvements in Latin America together with the positive impact of some expanded contracts in North America. Volumes increase in nearly all markets driven by a strong rebound in beer and spirits with solid growth in food. Volumes grew nearly 4% in Europe driven by customer inventory rebuilding and some buying ahead of tariffs for export customers.
As with the Americas shipments increased in nearly all markets and categories with most growth coming from beer wine as well as food. Currently, we are addressing excess capacity in Europe through temporary curtailments and we are in consultation with the European and local works councils, regarding long term restructuring actions. These efforts should improve our competitive position and support profitable growth. Shipment activity has been encouraging and our volumes are up about 3% year-to-date through April. Recently, we’ve seen some softer demand amid elevated uncertainty of new tariff policies, which may continue to impact near term shipments. As such, we are maintaining a cautious commercial outlook as well as our original sales volume guidance.
We will reassess our 2025 sales volume out of mid-year as trends evolve. Let’s now turn to Page 5 and discuss progress on our Fit to Win program, which aims to radically reduce total enterprise cost as well as optimize our entire network and value chain to support future profitable growth. We generated $61 million in savings during the first quarter alone, which exceeded our initial plan. Momentum is building and we are confident that we will achieve our targets of $250 million in 2025 and $650 million cumulatively by 2027. Phase A of our Fit to Win program is focused on reshaping our SG&A structure and initial network realignment to meet current market needs.
Phase B, seeks to fundamentally transform costs across the value chain including the implementation of our total organization effectiveness program, to optimize capacity within the system. Regarding Phase A, we have now completed all actions required to secure a 100 million SG&A savings target in 2025. Initial network optimization actions are well underway and we are confident that we will achieve our 2025 goal. Likewise additional efforts are in progress to achieve our 2027 targets. We’ve also kicked off our Phase B initiatives. As we look to transform our cost base, the team has already made initial progress across several procurement programs, as well as efforts to improve efficiency and reduce energy utilization.
Finally, our Total Organization Effectiveness program is ramping up nicely. We successfully completed the pilot implementation at our Tijuana, Virginia plant, where we see significant performance improvements and lower inventory levels. Based on those results, we will begin the broader roll out starting in May 2025, which should be completed by the end of 2026. Importantly, many plants have initiated savings programs based on the TOE principles ahead of the formal rollout generating early savings. In summary, our Fit to Win program is delivering strong benefits and we are making solid progress towards our savings target. We are confident in our ability to achieve our goals, enhance operational performance and are well positioned for continued success throughout the year.
I will now turn it over to John, who will review our first quarter performance and our 2025 outlook in more detail starting on Page 6.
John Haudrich: Thanks, Gordon and good morning, everyone. O-I reported first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.40 per share while down from last year. Results surpassed management’s expectations due to stronger than anticipated sales volume growth and higher Fit to Win benefits. As you can see on the left, adjusted earnings was down modestly from the prior year. Single digit sales volume growth and significant Fit to Win benefits mostly offset anticipated headwinds including lower net price and ongoing temporary production curtailments to reduce inventory. Looking to the right segment operating profit was up in the Americas, but down in Europe. Results improved significantly, Americas reflecting strong demand, stable net price amid tight capacity, and around $27 million of fit to win benefits.
Consistent with our expectations, earnings were down in Europe, while sales buying was up nearly 4%, net price was ahead, reflecting competitive pressures and excess capacity. We did incur about $58 million of unabsorbed fixed costs as we curtailed significant capacity to draw down inventories, which was partially offset by $20 million of fit to win benefits as well as other savings. Importantly, results should improve in the second half of the year as inventory reduction activities moderate and we generate greater initiative benefits following current restructuring actions. As we focus on economic profit, we have made very good progress on reducing inventory across the enterprise, which is down around $225 million from the same time last year.
Furthermore, we are on track to meet or be below our year in 2025 target of less than 50 days IDS. In summary, we’re off to a strong start this year. Despite some headwinds, results exceeded our expectations heading in the quarter and we are well-positioned for continued success throughout the year. Let’s turn to Page 7 and discuss our business outlook. We are reaffirming our full year 2025 guidance. Adjusted earnings should range between $1.20 and $1.50 per share, which represents a 50 to 85% improvement from fiscal year 2024. Significantly higher adjusted earnings should reflect ongoing efforts to enhance our operational performance, reduce costs, and capture market opportunities.
Likewise, we expect a significant rebound in free cash flow, boosted by strong operating performance improvement and lower CapEx investment requirements. We have also provided a directional sense of how our annual earnings will unfold by quarter. Based on a strong start to the year, our full year performance is currently tracking towards the high end of our earnings guidance range. However, we are maintaining our original business outlook given the uncertainty related to new tariff policies which we will discuss further as we turn to Page 8. Changes in global trade policies will likely be disruptive in the short-term and may create both new challenges and opportunities, which cannot be fully determined at this stage.
As illustrated in the chart, about 14% of our global sales volume crosses the border between the U.S. and other nations. This includes both empty and filled bottles. We estimate that only 4.5% is currently exposed to new tariffs. This primarily relates to imports of filled containers from Europe while most cross-border sales between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are exempt under the USMCA treaty. As such we face a limited direct tariff exposure so far. The bigger unknown is how elevated market uncertainty may impact the consumer and demand elasticity. While we face a few challenges there are potential opportunities. Glass is a local business and around 85% of the value chain is within 300 miles of the plant.
So, we do not rely on a global supply chain which is more exposed to tariffs. Favorable substrate dynamics may emerge as there are currently sector-specific tariffs on aluminum. Likewise domestic glass production is now significantly more competitive compared to imports from China given new tariffs. Next, OI has the largest glass network in the U.S., so we are well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities that emerge, especially if consumption shifts to more domestic products over time. Finally, policy changes have already led to sizable shifts in currency exchange rates that are helping improve earnings translation. Naturally, we are working with our partners in the value chain to mitigate risk and capture opportunities.
Overall, we continue to believe our best long-term strategy is to improve the competitive position of the company through Fit to Win. Now I’ll turn it back to Gordon, who will conclude our discussion on Page 9.
Gordon Hardie: Thanks, John. In conclusion, O-I is well positioned for a strong year ahead. We are off to a fast start. We expect our performance and earnings in 2025 will rebound from prior year levels as we implement our Fit to Win initiatives. While changes in the global trade policies create uncertainties, we are executing our long-term value creation road map as illustrated on the right and discussed at length during last month’s Investor Day. Importantly, these actions are largely within our control. We are confident in our ability to achieve our goals, deliver strong future financial performance and create shareholder value. Thank you for your attention, and we look forward to taking your questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
George Staphos: Thanks very much. Hi, well, good morning. Thank you for the detail.
Gordon Hardie: Good morning.
George Staphos: Good morning. I guess the question that I have to start is, can you talk a bit about any prebuy effects you’ve sort of touched on within Europe, what kind of volume effect might that be that has to reverse itself in the back half of the year or whenever? And then overall, can you talk a little bit about some of the work you’re doing on TOE in Toronto and elsewhere and why that supports your overall Fit-to-Win goals? So prebuy and then TOE and what you’re seeing in Toronto? Thank you.
John Haudrich: Yeah, George, thanks for the question. I’ll kick things off. This is John. On the prebuy point, as included in our comments, sales volume was up 4.4% in the first quarter. We actually saw probably a fairly limited amount of that. It was not the driver of the stronger volume in the quarter. And in fact, what we had seen is that our sales volumes were actually stronger in January and February, but they were still up in March. So we believe that maybe some of the strength in March was there.
So in other words, if volume was a $0.06 or so benefit in the quarter, maybe there was a $0.01 or $0.02 in there associated with prebuying, but it was not the driver of the stronger volume in the quarter.
George Staphos: Okay. And John, just kind of, — hi, Gordon, just quickly, April, you said softened. So are we looking at negative volumes to get to a year-to-date growth rate of 3% from up 4%? Or just maybe another kind of detail there.
Gordon Hardie: What I would say is while that’s not our base case view, we are remaining cautious in the commercial outlook. So we are maintaining our full year view of stable volume over for the year on a year-over-year basis so kind of flattish overall for the year. But again, that’s out of an abundance of caution on just the uncertainty on tariffs. It’s certainly not the direction we hope things go. And in April, just to give you a little bit of color, adjusted for Easter, volumes were down about 1% or 2%. It wasn’t a significant decline. Volumes were up in the Americas, low single digit. Again, that remains healthy.
And our business really isn’t exposed to tariffs there, but we did see a little bit of decline in Europe, and it was primarily in use categories and markets that we know are exposed to exports, considering that about 40% of what we make in Europe ultimately gets exported. It was kind of the wines and the spirits categories that we saw a little bit of softness in April.
Gordon Hardie: Yeah, George, we’ll update the as we get more visibility in this quarter and we’ll update and in at the half year. With regard to the second part of your question, TE and Toano, as we outlined, I think, in July and October, there is there’s a process that we put each of the plants through in that, there are performance opportunities identified and then we go and execute against those opportunities. In Toano, we have a very clear line of sight to 100% of the opportunities we identified and we’ve established the metrics, the operating system validated some of our hypothesis, which have promoted strongly. And now, we will begin the rollout across the whole fleet in waves.
And that’s a very structured kind of disciplined approach over the next 15 to 18 months. So we’re very happy with the outcome of Toano and we expect similar results as we roll out the program across the whole fleet.
George Staphos: Thank you, Gordon. just mentioned Toano is one of your better plans over the years. But I’ll turnover it over. Thanks very much.
Gordon Hardie: Thank you.
Operator: We now turn to Michael Roxland with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Michael Roxland: Thank you, Gordon, John and Chris for taking my question. And congrats on all the progress and nice quarter.
Gordon Hardie: Thanks, Michael.
Michael Roxland: My first question is just on a follow-up to what George was asking about stricter volumes. Can you give us a sense just in terms of the volume progress that you’re seeing by end market, whether it be line spirits, beer, NAB. I just want to get a sense of the growth or the headwinds that you may be encountering in some of those end markets. And where do order books stand currently? So any outlook you can share with respect to how early read on May for instance?
Gordon Hardie: Sure, Michael. I’ll take that question. So in both the Americas and Europe, we saw strong volumes in the first quarter. And literally, it was across most categories in each of the regions. So we — in the Americas, for example, we are up close to 4%. Food performing strongly, high single digits. Spirits in the Americas actually had a very strong quarter up double digits for us as had RTDs. So overall, strong volume growth in the Americas, strong demand, tight capacity in Europe. Beer performed very strongly in the quarter. Nonalcoholic beverages also performed strongly, up high single digits for us. Food up mid-single digits. One, a bit of a comeback in low single digits in Europe.
Spirits were off in Europe of mid-single digits and RTDs, which is a much smaller category in Europe was also slightly off. So all in all, there’s — we see kind of green shoots in a lot of the categories in a lot of the geographies coming back. So order books at this stage are good. There’s certainly uncertainty out there regarding where all these tariff discussions are going to play out and that is causing consumer uncertainty as well. So I think this quarter will be telling to see where everything lands and yeah that’s our view at the moment.
As I said, as we look to the end of the year, we’re sticking with our initial thinking at the start that it would be stable over the year. There may be a few bumps here and there, but overall off to a strong start.
Michael Roxland: That’s great Gordon. Thank you for all the color. And just one quick follow up, you’re looking to streamline your French operations given the slowdown in wine. Now, is that a structural issue just related to French wines? Is that a structural issue for all wines? Does it relate to more mainstream wine brands versus let’s say premium products in terms of I think premiums being like top regions top brands. So I get a sense of what you’re trying to do with your French operations and really what the driver is there in terms of the realignment.
Gordon Hardie: Yeah look, overall, it’s fitting assets to market opportunities. As I said, we’re looking now at the portfolio and In terms of two streams mainstream and premium. We see tremendous opportunities in premium across wine, across spirits in France and so some of this is the realignment of the footprint to get ourselves ready to expand into premium as we go forward. And of course, we’ll continue to invest strongly in France. We have a big investment in Agencour which has gone live and is delivering to expectations. We’re very happy with it and we will continue to invest in France which is a key market for wines and spirits, particularly wines and spirits.
Longer term, wine particularly, economy wines have suffered some impact across the whole market, but I think if you look through the cycle over the long term, premium and super premium wine, premium spirits, super premium spirits will continue to perform to perform strongly. And that really is looking at the footprint and making sure we’re set up properly for that, as we execute on what we laid out in our best of both strategy being the lowest cost producer in mainstream and best cost producer in premium. So that really is the context for the operations review across Europe.
Operator: Our net question comes from Joshua Spector with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Anojja Shah: Hi this morning, good morning. It’s Anojja Shah sitting in for Josh. On Friday, you mentioned tariffs on aluminum as an opportunity, one of the opportunities of tariffs. Have you seen signs of this yet with customers where this could potentially be a benefit like maybe you’re having introductory conversations about substrates or just any color on what you’re seeing there and how you think it might benefit you.
John Haudrich: Yeah, just for some clarity there, if you go back to our investor day, we did profile that overall glass containers in North America are at a higher cost than aluminum that’s 25% to 30% kind of differential and we believe. If that goes to 15% or lower historically, we’ve seen shifts over to glass and we believe that the difference on the aluminum tariff side could impact that call it 5%, 10% points against that 25% to 30% premium. So it could help. I think it’s a little early; some of the things are supply chain related. They’re filling related. They are contractually related.
So I would say just as we look at the back to the prepared comments, the challenges we’ll probably see some of the broader market related areas probably over the shorter to medium-term and the opportunities section that we show on page 8 is probably something that unfolds a little bit more over time than what we’re seeing anyway.
Gordon Hardie: Yeah. Just add to that you. Obviously, if there’s increases in price in aluminum that helps close the GAAP a bit, but that’s not a controllable for us. And so what we’re focused on is getting our cost base into a position that we close the GAAP very significantly to cans and become more competitive to cans particularly in North America. Driving those elements that are within our control and that really is our primary focus. Tariffs for us isn’t uncontrollable and while it may help us over a short, medium-term period, it’s not something we wish to rely on as we as we get fit.
Anojja Shah: Great. Thank you. That’s very helpful. I’ll turn it over.
Operator: We’ll now turn to Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Anthony Pettinari: Good morning. In Europe you have year-on-year headwinds for net price, and then operating costs with the curtailments in one queue. As you envision the year can you talk about maybe the cadence of how you’d expect those headwinds to trend and ultimately inflect over the four quarters of the year?
John Haudrich: Yeah. Anthony this is John. I’ll take that one. As we take a look at net price for the business, it will be front and loaded this year so you saw the $37 million impact in the quarter. It should be less than that in the second quarter, and then be a relatively minor headwind for the business in the back half of the year. That’s primarily because last year we had started to see a little bit of pricing pressure in the marketplace in the back half of last year, so we’re going to comp that. So that will show a year over year moderation in that pressure point.
And then when it comes to the curtailment costs, we believe that also is going to be front-end loaded, we’re trying to bring our inventories down to 50 days or lower. We’re making good progress on that. If you take a look at just the calculations and everything on a year-on-year basis, the operating cost impact of that is it peaks in the first quarter, will have some negative impact in the second quarter, not to the same degree in the first quarter, and by the back half of the year on a year-on-year basis that’s going to be a strong year-on-year headwinds, against obviously weaker comps in the prior year.
So hopefully that gives you the cadence that you’re looking for.
Anthony Pettinari: Got it, got it. That’s very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up, you talked about tariff impacts and competitive intensity with aluminum, which I guess is maybe too soon to tell, but in the US, can you talk about how fewer Chinese bottles, fewer Chinese imports, how you’re seeing that impact the market this year?
Gordon Hardie: Yeah. Currently we’re not seeing a lot of impact because there does seem to have been quite a bit of pre-buying by importers and distributors. So we see there’s a fair bit of stock in the market. Obviously, buyers may also look to see if there are other cheaper import markets such as India, but so at the moment we’re not seeing a huge impact, Anthony.
John Haudrich: One thing I would add Anthony is if we take a look at those opportunity sections and that tariff if those emerge those are kind of upsides to the — our baseline view of the business. So those are opportunities that are not factored into our current outlook at all.
Anthony Pettinari: Got it. Got it. And what do you think those inventories potentially they run down by the summer? Is it a few months or a few quarters or any framing there.
Gordon Hardie: Yeah, I would imagine by the end of the summer. I would imagine by the end of the summer
Anthony Pettinari: Got it. Got it. I’ll turn it over.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We now turn to Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Arun Viswanathan: Great. Thanks for taking my question. So congrats on the strong progress thus far. I guess maybe you can just review what you’re hearing from some of your customers on the spirit side in North America. I know there’s been some volatility there. I mean I guess globally as well that would be helpful. Thanks.
Gordon Hardie: Yeah, you know, as we work through these kind of uncertain times obviously we’re staying as close as we can to customers and working with them on maybe different scenarios and how we position capacity and I think there’s a bit of a wait and see over the next 60 days now. And I think there has been last year maybe some shifting of product into different markets and we saw that a bit of that in January, but no big structural decisions about onshoring capacity or onshoring bottling for example from Europe. There people are talking about it but no actual moves on that and. Neither do we see moves currently into from the US into Europe.
So I think we’re very much in a wait and see period and some of these decisions once you make them you’re long on that decision. And then if tariff policies change people can be caught out of the position. So I think it’s very much a wait and see at the moment, Arun.
John Haudrich: The one thing I would add on that what we had seen last year is that — that the spirits activity they were drawing down inventories and I think we’ve seen some normalization of that. In fact our volumes in the first quarter and spirits were actually pretty good because people are beyond past that destocking phase and now we’re going into the obviously the uncertainty with tariffs.
Arun Viswanathan: Thanks, John. Yeah and I guess, I also had some questions on the rod side. Maybe just give us some thoughts on how you’re thinking about your energy hedges as it relates to natural gas as well as potentially you are sourcing of coal and soda ash if there’s anything we need to be mindful of on that side. Thanks.
John Haudrich: Yeah, I’ll address the energy component of it. So just a background we have very favorable energy long-term contracts that we set before the Russia-Ukraine war. We’ve been benefiting from that. We’re highly covered and contracted through the balance of the year. So as it stands for this year we’re in very good shape when it comes to energy. Now going into next year 2016 and beyond we have been layering in over time some of our positions and contracts for the future. We take a multi-year view on that. Now at the same token, some of those prices had peaked up at the beginning of the year so we’re being judicious about that.
What I would point you back to Arun is back to our Investor Day about a month ago, we kind of gave a longer-term view of from our bridge from today or at the end of 2024 to 2027, where we’re going to $1.45 billion of EBITDA included that in that outlook was our expected headwind for resetting of those long-term energy contracts and I would say that view still holds. So I think you can look back at that and even with the moving energy markets I think it’s still an appropriate outlook.
Gordon Hardie: Yes. And with regard to raw materials generally, as we’ve laid out as part of our strategy is a value chain approach to working differently both with customers on the front end but also working differently with suppliers on the back end. And doing so in a way that strips waste and inefficiency out of – out of that part of the chain and we’re working very well with our key suppliers. There’s tremendous focus on productivity plans and so we’re very happy with the progress we’re making there and in managing that area of the value chain and the cost is far more tightly than heretofore. So we feel we’re in good shape there.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We now to turn to Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Gabe Hajde: Gordon, John, Chris, good morning. Thanks for taking the question.
Gordon Hardie: Gabe, how are you?
John Haudrich: Hi, Gabe.
Gabe Hajde: Well, I joined a moment late, so I apologize if you guys addressed this. I didn’t see you call out any sort of curtailments in the Americas. So A, confirm that. B, I think I heard the word tightish across the production system. Is that true across the specific geographies, US, Mexico and Brazil? And then maybe what are you seeing? I know we’re going into the winter months but any discussion with your customers in terms of kind of cadence for the back half of the year.
John Haudrich: I can take the first part of that. You did hear right, yes, okay sure. You did hear right overall there were no curtailments of any consequence in the Americas, all the way from Canada, down to Brazil, we’re very balanced in that in that particular marketplace. Certainly, we will continue to seek through GOE going forward. Opportunities to improve capacity utilization but we’ve done most of the heavy lifting of the network, initial network optimizations in the Americas, and as I mentioned before, we continue in Europe but we hope by mid-year maybe later part of summer, we’ll be on the worst of the temporary procurement activity.
Gordon Hardie: Yes. And the outlook for the rest of the year I think is largely more of the same in the Americas, the demand is good, capacity is tight, pricing stable and we expect that to kind of run through probably to the end of the year and those geographies for sure.
Gabe Hajde: Okay. And then John, I think you kind of mentioned and I fully appreciate being cautious and pragmatic here given the macro but kind of if we were to free things today tracking towards the upper end of the range based on kind of what you expect through the first half. I also know that you guys have talked about trying to reduce the volatility and earnings and produce closer to sell maybe not hang on to as much inventory. I think I know Gordon you talked about that, the Q4 guide. Is that where we would see the big swing factor? And I think you also just mentioned not taking as many curtailments in the fourth quarter.
So is that the big swing factor and unknown as we sit today, that could dictate higher end of the range, lower end of the range, because it seems like you guys got some visibility into the Q2, Q3?
John Haudrich: I think it’s a fair observation Gabe. The fourth quarter as you took a look at that pie chart is the weakest quarter from an earnings — a quarterly earnings standpoint. It is also the seasonally slowest period for a business given just the seasonality of our business and being predominantly northern hemisphere. But if there’s an opportunity, I think there is again line of sight is better in the second and third and a little bit more cautious in the fourth quarter. Of course, the fourth quarter is also an active period. Sometimes you do more maintenance, sometimes you don’t depending on the activity.
And I would also say, our earnings are very sensitive to tax rates, especially in those softer periods and seasonally softer periods. So that could also be a swing factor too. So to the degree that we’re at the higher end of the range and the tariff challenges don’t manifest themselves to materially impact the business, I think you could see the fourth quarter being a little bit better.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We have no further questions. So I’ll now hand back to Chris Manuel for any final remarks.
Chris Manuel: Thanks Elliott. That concludes our earnings call. Please note, our second quarter call is currently scheduled for Wednesday, July 30, and as a reminder, make it a memorable moment by choosing safe, sustainable glass. Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, today’s call is now concluded. We’d like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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Dave:
Flippers are reporting lower profit margins, but at the same time, a recent survey tells us that they are just as optimistic about flipping as ever. So which one is it? Is it a good flipping market or not? Today, we’re bringing on our house flipping expert, maybe one of the greatest house flippers of all time, James Dainard, to give us the real state of the flipping market in 2026. Hey, everyone. Welcome to On the Market. I’m Dave Meyer here with James Dainard today to talk about the state of the house flipping market. James, what’s up, man? Thanks for being here.
James:
Oh, I’m in sunny Arizona this week.
Dave:
I know. You just look warm like you’re glowing right now with warmth and good weather. Well, thanks for joining us today. I know you’re busy being a TV star and flipping 10,000 houses and all that other stuff that you do. But I was reading this article the other day. It is called What to Expect From the Home Flipping Market in 2026 and Beyond. It’s a survey that Resi Club put together. And as I was reading this, I was just thinking, got to talk to James about this. I’m very curious what he thinks about it. So if you’re cool with it, we’ll just walk through this report and I’d just love your takes on how the overall flipping market is shaping up in 2026.
James:
I love making predictions that probably won’t come true. So we’ll see how this goes in 12 months.
Dave:
All right. Well, I think the headline is that flippers, they’re just pretty optimistic people maybe, or at least compared to me because the survey that we’re talking about, people are asking, how is flipping right now? Is it working in today’s market? And people are kind of saying yes. Over 50% said that their market is either strong or very strong. 40% said somewhat weak, but only 8% said very weak. And that’s actually down from six months ago and one year ago. Now, I am not a flipper. You and I have done a couple little projects together, but man, when I look at that, I’m like, what are they seeing that I am not seeing?
James:
Well, I think it’s just the natural being high risk investor, right? Whether it’s flipping crypto, you have to believe in it.
Dave:
Yeah.
James:
I mean, to take that kind of risk on, right? There’s a lot of reward in flipping, but there’s a lot of risk. If you have that kind of cautious, like, I don’t know, you just never buy a deal and you get into analysis parallels and you lock up. But I do think this rapport, our people are extra optimistic. The weird thing is I’m kind of a pessimistic flipper because I still have 2008 scars where I’m like, everything was sunshine and bunnies and then all of a sudden it was not sunshine and bunnies anymore. But according to this article, people feel really strong about it. And I think I feel like our economy for the next couple of years is going to be kind of this volatile up and down. And flipping’s really going to come into timing.
Dave:
Maybe tell me, you seem a little bit pessimistic. What are some of the conditions as a flipper you’re seeing on the ground that’s making you not feel great about the market?
James:
It’s stability and showings in buyer sentiment that it gives me the most concern because I feel like people are so much more finicky nowadays. They don’t have the same outlook as flippers have where they’re like, “We got to get in the housing market.” It seems like any little jolt to the economy or move geopolitical or even just every time Powell speaks, it’s just like buyers lock up. They either get, they fall in love or they pull back. And I would say their sediment’s all over the place. And just based on the consistency of data, right? We’re seeing showings inventory is going up and down, up and down. There’s no consistency. And that’s what makes me feel a little bit concerned.
Dave:
So it’s less about your own operations, right? You’re not as worried about doing the renovation, costs of inputs, what you can buy them for. You’re worried mostly on the disposition side when you actually have to go and sell what you flipped.
James:
I guess that’s the problem with flipping right now. I’m a big proponent of creating systems, discipline and following that path. And sometimes you’re going to sell at the right time. Sometimes you’re going to sell the wrong, but you can keep that discipline through and just try to stick to the format. The format’s a lot harder to stick to now. Hiring contractors in the labor market is still all over the place. It’s hard to find people. Any kind of excuse to the economy contractors use, and it’s not their fault, they’re just trying to make money. And also they have valid concerns. Right now, gas is really high. We’re having guys not come, they don’t even want to bid houses because it’s just a little too far.
Dave:
Really? Wow.
James:
I just had a house out in Snohomish, which is about 45 minutes north of Seattle. It’s a little far. Beautiful country, 10 acres. There might’ve been a murder there. I don’t know. But don’t ask questions on that one. But getting an electrician to work out there, we have been bidding it for three weeks. We had a quote come in at $69,000 on this house and we just finally contracted it at 28,000.
Dave:
Oh my God.
James:
And the guys, we’ve used them before. It’s just like that’s how much he didn’t want to work because it was too far away. He’s like the gas, the time. I got to go up there a bunch. And he just didn’t want it. And so that’s the hard part is being consistent because usually I can look at a house, it’s a 3,500 square foot house and go, “Hey, it’s about eight to $10 a foot to rewire that house.” But fuel and the economy, it does make a big impact. And what I am seeing is because buyers and flippers are still being aggressive and they’re still seeing a good market and a good outlook, they’re still buying. So people still have a lot of work in the hopper. And so finding guys is really, really challenging. And so is finding … The tariffs have not burned off on a lot of items.
Appliances are still really expensive. I mean, we are talking cabinets. Cabinets are high right now. Countertops are high.
Dave:
Yeah. So it just kind of feels like you’re getting hit all over the place. You’re not able to feel confident that you’re going to have a strong buyer pool because it just feels week to week right now. Since the war in Iran started, interest rates went up. We’re already seeing pending sales go down. There’s already a measurable impact to that. AI displacement, people are super worried about that. But then who knows? Maybe the stock market keeps going up and then people start feeling good. So on the disposition side, you’re getting hit. Then on the input costs, just for materials, you’re getting hit. Labor costs, you’re getting hit. I guess the only way I could see flipping being better is that you’re getting better deals. You have to be paying much less than you were to compensate for those challenges. Are you seeing that at least?
James:
No. Not right now, but that’s normal though.
Dave:
Oh, because it’s spring.
James:
It’s just spring, right? I would say the market was doing very well, at least in our market. I was even seeing it down in Arizona. Sales were popping off. I’ve talked to some other flippers nationwide. It was kind of moving until this war kind of kicked in the place and we were seeing low inventory, but you have everybody coming off a win. So anybody who sold in December, January, and February, you’re feeling good because the house sold quickly. Everything I listed in January, February, we sold within the first 10 days.
Dave:
Well, that’s when we were touching 6% mortgage
James:
Rates. 6% mortgage rate, time of season.
Dave:
And
James:
Then how long did our flip take? Just something absurdly long.
Dave:
Oh, the one in West Seattle? Yeah. Yeah. That one took six months almost.
James:
I feel like we were watching paint dry. And that’s the dangerous part about flipping. You always got to remind yourself of is you want to go buy something when you just hit a win. You just feel good. You feel invincible. I just crushed this deal and everyone said the market was garbage six months ago. They’re getting more aggressive now and this is where you get in trouble because then you’re going to sell in the summer. We have a lot of volatility going on and that’s working hard, but I’m not seeing a lot of deal flow. But partly is we’ve redefined what a deal is right now because we feel like the market’s a little bit more volatile. If we’re buying right now, we’re going to be selling at a slower time. We want a wider margin. And because we’ve increased our margin expectations, it is harder to find a deal.
If I put it down to what we were buying at 12 months ago, we probably would have an extra four or five deals this month.
Dave:
Well, I want to talk a little bit more about that, that margin component, because I do think that’s how you can still be a flipper even in what James is describing as a tough flipping market, but we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to On The Market. James and I are talking about flipper sentiment and what he’s seeing in his market. Let’s jump back in. I just wanted to talk a little bit for a second and share some information from this report about the regional variances because my assumption going into reading this article was, oh, people in the West where you and I both live and where you flip are going to be negative. People in the Northeast and the Midwest are going to be optimistic, but the optimism is just universal. Even in the Southwest, which is probably the weakest market right now, 60% of people say demand is strong.
I don’t really understand that. In the West where you’re operating and you’re describing a pretty dire picture, nearly 80% of people are saying that the market is strong and that people want to buy flipped homes. In the West and the Midwest, very different inventory and market dynamics, the optimism among flippers is just the same. It’s just people are just feeling good about it. And I wonder if that’s because they might have lower margins expectations than you. So 12% of people reported flipping margins of 40% are higher, 15% said 30 to 39%. And I know that’s kind of what you target, right? 35% is kind of what your standard is?
James:
Yeah, depending on timing, if I’m buying in the summer, I’m going to be shooting for about 30 because I’m going to be dispoing at the right time. If I’m buying right now, I raise that to 40. And that spend the delta is building in a little bit more risk for sell time because the last two years have proved to us seasonal selling is very important and you have to adapt when you get that kind of experience.
Dave:
Well, I think this also just kind of underscores how tough it is going to be to find deals because if you’re looking for 30 to 40% margins, only 27% of people are reporting that they’re hitting that. So that means people are buying bad deals, at least by your standards, right? You think it’s just people are getting antsy or too thirsty and buying stuff they shouldn’t be?
James:
Well, I think it depends on a few things, like that middle with the inputs you’re talking about with construction costs, that delta, that unexpected costs rising. Labor’s hard to get when I’m paying electrical and I think it’s almost double on some houses because of location, that’s where the margin gets reported down. They might’ve walked in. I’d love to know what they were expectations walking in were because we’re shooting for 40, but I can tell you we’re averaging about 20 when we’re closing out.
Dave:
And
James:
There’s a couple to hit. We just hit one that was an amazing one though that we hit about 90% on.
Dave:
Let’s talk about that because you got a 90% margin. What were you expecting? Still underwriting that for 40%?
James:
We bought that in June when tariffs have really affected disposition. So there wasn’t a lot of people that wanted those heavy, heavy fixers. And so walking into that deal, because of the size of the renovation and the purchase price, we had about a 55% margin going in with leverage. Oh,
Dave:
Wow. Okay.
James:
And part of that is because the price was cheap on the house, but the rehab budget was so big, that means we’re putting down 15%, but we were getting so much finance back to us on the construction. And leverage is a really important part. The cheaper the deal, the higher returns you’re typically going to get cash on cash, but the delta swings really big, five grand on a deal can also affect the profit dramatically. Sometimes that’s 20% of your profit. And for us, it’s like if we’re off by a month, it’s 20 grand for us. So
Dave:
There’s this
James:
Difference in the affordability, but we went into that deal. It was really beat up. I had to buy it sight unseen and it was at a really bad time in the market. And so based on those conditions, we put that 55% return on because we knew we were going to have a lot of unexpected issues, which we did. We also hit that return, but we still want $60,000 over budget.
Dave:
So what went right? How did you turn a difficult deal, a complicated deal during a bad market into a 90% profit? Tell the audience how you made that one work so well.
James:
So we had to take a step back. Once we start seeing, because I bought that one site unseen, and again, it was molding, it was really bad, and I’m used to dealing with that. But what I didn’t know about the house was this was one of the worst floor plans I had ever … It was so tight.This was an 1,800 square foot house that felt like 1200 square feet, and yet we had 20 foot ceilings. And so once we started getting into some major issues, like we had some landscaping issues in the back, which was a $10,000 surprise. We had buried trash everywhere that we did not know were under the stickers. We had to structurely reframe the entire house, and then the city made us do a lot of extra improvements on this house to get it secure. And once we started creeping over budget, we had to do a stop and go, “Okay, do we lean into this?
” Because us going over budget also was us upgrading a lot of things
And going, “Okay, is there a buyer for this price point if we can get it a little bit more premium product?” So I would say out of our overages, half were for construction and then half were strategic to chase a higher price point. So anytime you start getting in deep to a house, you got to pull back, audit it and go, “Let’s look at the comps again. Do we pull back or do we lean into it? ” And so we leaned into that to get a premium price point because our original ARV was 1.25 and we sold it for 1.4.
Dave:
That’s awesome. And when you decided to reinvest basically into this property, were you doing an analysis that says this is still a 55% return on the new money, right?
James:
Well, the thing is our return went down. Now profit went up, but we actually would have, if we would have refinanced the property, because the one thing is when you have to pivot on a construction loan, we had to come up with that extra 50 grand out of our own pocket.
Dave:
Oh, I see. So you weren’t leveraging it, so you were putting a lot more cash in.
James:
Yeah. So instead of putting in that 15% down, our down payment on the property of the 50 grand, we had to come up with the 50, but when you’re selling it for $150,000 more, it still brought it up. And so those are the negatives. And as flippers, those are things that you always want to be prepared for is have those reserves set aside or access to get a secondary lender that can cover those things because the last thing you want to do as a flipper is to be out of gas and out of money on a project because it makes you get stressed out and it makes you make poor decisions and desperate decisions. And so just that’s why I’m always big on keeping those reserves aside. You got to keep them aside.
Dave:
Okay. So that’s a deal that went well. You got a great profit. Maybe you could share with us a deal that hasn’t gone well, one that you were targeting 40%, but you came in lower than that. And maybe explain how the market conditions sort of contributed to that and maybe what you would do differently.
James:
Well, I’d say there’s two. One was we squeaked out with an average return where we made about a lot of what they’re saying in this report, like 35% of people said they made 10 to 19%. I would say about one third of my deals hit those numbers that we dispoed recently. And I would say the main reasons for that were permit timelines because it’s not only are you dealing with contractors that are bidding things high, the cities are updating their energy codes like crazy with the construction going on and they’re making you do a lot of things that aren’t expected. And so they took a lot longer because of cities and permits, the contractors were busy, so they took a little bit longer. And then we went to sell them in November, December, and the market took longer. And so the reason we were in that 10 to 15% returns is because the deals took about 30% longer than
Dave:
We
James:
Anticipated.
Dave:
And that was all across the board.
James:
That would be on the deals that we were hitting those 10 to 15% returns on, or even the one I lost money on. And we lost about 8,000 in this house and end of the day, not the end of the world. And most of that was based on the city took forever to get trusses. It was a fire repair permit, and usually they issue a repair permit fairly quickly, and it took four months to get it. And our proforma was only for seven.
Dave:
And I guess this is the unforgiving nature of the market because two or three years ago, you might’ve gotten a little bit of appreciation, tailwinds a little bit. And not saying you would’ve hit your performa, but it wouldn’t have probably been a loss two years ago. But now with the softness when you go to sell, whether they’re mistakes or something out of your control, but these issues kind of compound a little bit.
James:
Yeah. And a lot of times it is stuff that you cannot control. Our job is to hedge what we can control, right? How do we get … We actually hit … The deal we lost $8,000 on, we hit our budget. I would say we’re actually like two or 3,000 under budget on it. What got us on that deal was, again, the permit timelines. We can’t control that. It should have been faster. And then negative impacts. Okay, we sold this house for 50 grand less than our proforma. We had great showings, but what got us was the neighbor.
Dave:
Oh, no.
James:
The neighbor, during our construction timeline, they bought like seven cars and they were sitting out in front of their house. I swear, I was this close to going over there and trying to buy them all. That’s stuff outside of your control and this house should have sold for a million dollars and we sold it for 950 and those are big things that people have to pay attention to right now. If you have a negative impact on your property, it will sell for less
Dave:
Because
James:
When buyers are being selective, they’ll just go to the next house. We were the nicest, best looking house for sale in the market, but if they don’t want to live next to the neighbors, they don’t want to live next to the neighbors.
Dave:
So give us some advice here, James, because I’m, as I said, a little surprised how optimistic people are feeling, and hopefully they are. If you’re a flipper, hopefully you are making these returns. Hopefully you’re getting 30, 40%, and James and I are being overly pessimistic. But I think a lot of people are interested in flipping and curious if they should get in right now. What would you say to them if they want to get into flipping either for the first time or maybe they’re a casual flipper and are wondering if this is a year that they should take a swing on something?
James:
Spend more time working on your resources and making sure you can hit the ground running. The common denominator, I mean, not making money or maybe even losing a little bit of money is it took too long. If you don’t have a contractor, you can’t get the work done, you get stalled out, that’s how you can kind of get behind right out the gate. And so really spend time meeting that right contractor, the right broker that can analyze your deal, the right lender that can get you the right terms for your market and then walk into it. The one thing I would say for all flippers though, even though I came off a round of really good deals and some average deals, and so a couple duds too, I will always buy and I will adjust my returns. So right now, if I’m buying today, I’m probably selling in August or September, not going to be great.
So I just have to get my returns up. I mean, there’s a deal right now that I’m probably going to buy. Actually, Dave, you know what? This is why I buy this deal right now, right? Even though I sound pessimistic, cash on cash return, we’re over 40%.
It’s got a lake view. It’s a mid-century style home. Built in the 50s, less permitting. North Seattle, price point 1.6 million, good for the … The average velocity in that price point in this specific area is pretty good. It’s not like 1.8’s kind of the slow part. So it hits all four cycles and we’ve adjusted the rehab budgets to the numbers we just paid, right? So we’ve made the adjustments and we’re feeling good about it. It’s actually a really cool house. We’ll talk about this later. So that’s the thing. There’s novelty and it’s a lot of work to do, but I know what I’ll buy and not buy. And the reason I feel like that buys available is because people are sitting on a little bit of inventory right now and they’re getting a little nervous based on what they’re reading and what they’re seeing in gas prices.
And so I like it when the sediment doesn’t look like 53% think it’s roses and sunshine and bunnies. I like it when everyone’s like, ” This market’s terrible. “We’re
Dave:
Looking
James:
At this graph, it’s red, orange, green, and blue. When people are feeling the most in the orange and the red, that is the time to buy.
Dave:
So you don’t like it because it feels frothy to you because people, you’re going to face competition because people are too optimistic?
James:
Yeah, because they’re doing the deal to do the deal or they need to put their crews to work or they need to … They got money in their bank and they’re itching to spend it. That’s usually when their guards are down and they’ll get a little bit sloppy with their
Dave:
Underwriting.
James:
And so I like it when people are more nervous. There’s certain product right now I don’t want to buy in Seattle because people still like it too much. I’m like, ” I want to wait until they don’t like it. Then I’ll buy it. “I want the investors to pull back like Daddoos right now, we’re seeing a compression on Daddoos. I haven’t been a huge Daddoo guy, but now I’m really starting to look at them because I’m like, ” Oh, there’s some opportunities starting to pop up.
Dave:
“All right, everyone, we got to take a quick break, but we’ll have more with James on the flipping market right after this. Welcome back to On The Market. Let’s jump back in with James Dainard, who’s schooling us on the state of the flipping market. Well, it sounds like what I’m hearing is you’re going to keep buying. You still think that people can keep buying, but sort of the two things I kept hearing you say are one, timeline, like make sure that you’re operating these things quickly, preparing before you buy things, make sure you have all your ducks in a row, your teams in place. And then number two, not just sticking to your underwriting, but perhaps making your underwriting even more strict, like shooting for an even higher margin, because if you miss on a 40 to 50% expected return, you’ll probably still turn a profit.
If you’re aiming for 25% margin and then you miss, that’s when you could go into the rent.
James:
Yeah. And just really look at the deal and iron out your numbers. You got to make your adjustments. If you did something wrong on your last project, is it fixable or do you just need to build that into your performa? And I would say that’s one thing that we’ve done well recently is we’re just increasing our rehab costs, even if they’re numbers that I don’t think I should be paying. I’m like, this seems absurd, but I’m putting it in anyways because that’s just what it is.
Dave:
I mean, I think that makes sense right now, regardless of whether you’re flipping or doing a burrow or rental property. It’s just kind of this kind of market where the way you prepare for uncertainty is assume the worst. I don’t love being a pessimist, but I do think it makes sense because then if things go badly, you’re not even that stressed out about it, right? You’re like, oh, this is kind of what I was expecting and I planned for it instead of planning for everything to go well and then being all of a sudden frustrated or in trouble because things don’t go well when we just need to be honest that in today’s market, we don’t know if things are going to go that well. They might go a little bit sideways. And so you plan for that before you buy, not during the renovation process.
Well, James, thanks so much for walking through this with us. There is no one better in the industry to help us understand the flipping market right now. We’d love to know what your sentiment is about flipping as well. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, go to the comments, let us know what you’re seeing in your market, if you’re optimistic, like this survey says, or if you’re feeling a little less optimistic, a little hesitant like James is, but he’s still buying, he’s just following these strict rules. James, thanks again for being here, man.
James:
Thanks, Dave.
Dave:
And thank you all so much for watching this episode of On The Market. We’ll see you next time.
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Depending on your financial goals and personal preferences, you may have a medium- to high-risk investment portfolio. However, if you’ve recently become concerned about one of the following situations, you may want to consider lowering your risk.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote a letter publicly apologizing to residents of the Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge after the company failed to alert local authorities about a person who allegedly killed eight people in the town earlier this year.
On Feb. 10, an 18-year-old suspect, Jesse Van Rootselaar, allegedly killed her mother and stepbrother before killing five students and an educational assistant at a school in Tumbler Ridge, a rural town in the western Canadian province of British Columbia. Van Rootselaar, who was transitioning from male to female, later killed herself at the school, according to authorities.
In a letter published last week in local newspaper Tumbler RidgeLines, and whose authenticity was confirmed by an OpenAI spokesperson, Altman addressed the town’s residents, saying he was “deeply sorry” the company did not alert authorities to the suspected shooter.
“While I know words can never be enough, I believe an apology is necessary to recognize the harm and irreversible loss your community has suffered,” Altman wrote.
A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment beyond what was in Altman’s letter.
Months before the shooting, OpenAI employees had flagged the ChatGPT account of the suspected shooter, Van Rootselaar, last June for interactions that described gun violence, The Wall Street Journal reported. A group of a dozen staffers reportedly debated internally on whether to alert authorities, but ultimately decided not to. The company banned her ChatGPT account, because her activity didn’t meet the criteria for an imminent threat, the Journal reported.
OpenAI later contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to support the investigation, but local leaders have claimed more could have been done to prevent the shooting.
David Eby, the premier of the province of British Columbia, wrote in a post on X Friday “the apology is necessary, and yet grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumbler Ridge.”
In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in February, Eby said there should be a national threshold for when AI companies are required to alert authorities about a flagged user.
“The only way to hold these companies accountable is to have a consistent standard across the country,” he said at the time.
In meetings with officials from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet, justice minister Sean Fraser said he told OpenAI officials to implement new safety regulations.
“The message that we delivered, in no uncertain terms, was that we have an expectation that there are going to be changes implemented,” Fraser said following a February meeting with OpenAI’s head of policy Chan Park and six other company representatives. “If they’re not forthcoming very quickly, the government’s going to be making changes.”
Shooting deaths, and especially school shootings, are rare in Canada. A study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund from 2024 found the country had 2.2 gun deaths per 100,000 people per year, compared to 13.5 per 100,000 people per year in the U.S. The country’s last high-profile mass shooting at a school was in 2016, when a 17-year-old shooter killed four people and injured several others at a high school in La Loche, a village in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Altman reaffirmed in the letter that he is committed to working with the mayor of Tumbler Ridge, Darryl Krakowka, as well as premier Eby to find ways to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“Going forward, our focus will continue to be on working with all levels of government to help ensure something like this never happens again,” Altman wrote.
Donald and Melania Trump both called for ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel on Monday after a joke last week in which the late-night comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”
The remark about the president’s wife was part of a routine on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” where the host pretended to deliver a comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. That event two nights later was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the Washington ballroom where the Trumps and much of the nation’s political leadership had gathered.
“People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate,” Melania Trump said in a social media post later echoed by her husband.
Kimmel described the joke during his Monday night monologue as a light roast about the first couple’s age difference and “not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination.”
He said he was sorry that the president and everyone at the event went through that traumatic and scary experience.
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,” Kimmel said. “I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”
There was no comment Monday from ABC.
Kimmel has long targeted the president in his comedy, and he doubled down after a run-in with the administration last fall. Kimmel was suspended by ABC and some of the network’s affiliates said they would take him off the air following a comment made about assassinated conservative leader Charlie Kirk, moves encouraged by Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr. ABC and the stations later brought Kimmel back.
Upon his return, Kimmel said that by saying that “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk,” he was not trying to make light of Kirk’s killing and didn’t want to leave that impression. He did not apologize, however, and he criticized station owners who took him off the air before later relenting.
Shortly after the incident, ABC signed Kimmel to a one-year contract extension that is due to keep him on the air until May 2027. His show has aired on the network since January 2003.
His late-night competitor Stephen Colbert — another frequent Trump critic — is seeing his CBS show end next month.
Dressed in a tux and standing behind a podium Thursday, Kimmel pretended to deliver a comic routine for the WHCA dinner. His speech had false “cutaways” to the Trumps and others, taken from video clips.
He noted Melania in the “audience,” saying, “Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
“I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale,” the president said on his Truth Social platform. “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired” by ABC and its parent Walt Disney Co., he said.
His wife said Kimmel’s “hateful and violent rhetoric” is intended to divide the country. “A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” Melania Trump wrote. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was part of a campaign of rhetoric from Democrats and some in the media that “has helped to legitimize this violence.”
“Who in their right mind says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband?” Leavitt said. There was no indication that Kimmel was referring to violence.
The National Religious Broadcasters association filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, asking the agency to investigate ABC.
“We’re seeing a pattern of violence in this country that didn’t appear overnight,” said Troy Miller, NRB’s president and CEO. “When influential voices joke about death or treat political opponents as disposable, it contributes to a culture where violence feels thinkable to the already unstable.”
During his routine, Kimmel noted Melania Trump’s birthday Sunday, saying, “She’s planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does — looking out a window and whispering, ‘What have I done?’”
He also said: “Before we go any further, Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania. That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein.”
Cole Tomas Allen, the California man arrested after attempting to rush into the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday, was charged Monday with the attempted assassination of the president.
___
Associated Press correspondent Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
Update 4/27/26: Deal is back, limit 4. Valid until June 21, 2026. Hat tip to DDG
Direct link to offer
Useful for the dunkin fans.
Hat tip to Ropps
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