Melania Trump is demanding ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel … blasting the late-night host as a “coward” and accusing him of spreading “hateful and violent rhetoric” after his jokes about her family.

The First Lady unloaded in a fiery statement Monday … saying Kimmel’s monologue “isn’t comedy” and claiming his comments are helping fuel division across the country. Kimmel’s roast of the event aired Thursday night, days before the WHCD shooting in D.C. Saturday night.

“His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” she said … adding that people like Kimmel “shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

Melania also accused the network of shielding Kimmel from consequences … saying he “hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.”

Melania’s outrage appears tied to Kimmel’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner parody last week … where he mocked her marriage to POTUS and made multiple cracks about FLOTUS herself.

During the segment, Kimmel joked Melania looked like “an expectant widow” and later quipped she would spend her birthday “looking out a window and whispering, ‘What have I done?’”

He also poked fun at the couple’s relationship by pretending they had just met … joking, “Oh, by the way, Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania.”

The segment aired two days before the dinner was thrown into chaos when a gunman opened fire near a Secret Service checkpoint inside the Washington Hilton.