David Letterman: ‘Alec Baldwin Deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom’ for Spoofing Trump on ‘SNL’
“My son, Harry, and I call him ‘Trumpy.’”
In an extensive interview with New York Magazine, former “Late Show” host David Letterman was neither shy nor brief when it came to the topic of our 45th president. As someone who had interviewed Donald Trump multiple times, Letterman felt that the media’s constant feelings of surprise regarding every one of Trump’s tweets, statements or acts aren’t productive.
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“I’m tired of people being bewildered about everything he says: ‘I can’t believe he said that,’” Letterman said. “We gotta stop that and instead figure out ways to protect ourselves from him. We know he’s crazy. We gotta take care of ourselves here now.
“Comedy’s one of the ways we can protect ourselves,” he added. “Alec Baldwin deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sadly he’s not going to get it from this president. The man has such thin skin that if you keep pressure on him … That’s Alec Baldwin and ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It’s distracting the batter. Eventually Trump’s going to take a fastball off the serum and have to leave the game.”
Letterman added that now because of “Saturday Night Live’s” clear and unrelenting stance on politics, producer Lorne Michaels is also a hero. “This guy is now the prince of New York,” he said. “People are waiting in line to thank him for what he’s doing to Trump. He’s given a little breathing room. He’s loosened the noose.”
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Letterman himself didn’t start out by including politics in his comedy but that changed. “Because [Johnny] Carson was my model,” he said. “I’ll tell you the other thing: All of that changed because of Jon Stewart.”
In fact, Letterman feels like it’s the responsibility of talk show hosts now to address these topics. “I think you have an obligation,” he said. “I don’t want to criticize Jimmy Fallon, but I can only tell you what I would have done in that situation: I would have gone to work on Trump.”
For one, the president is not a fan of what Letterman does best: “He would really rather not have a society where free speech was going to be a factor.”
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