Speaking on Fox & Friends, Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) reacted to Saturday Night Live Comedian Pete Davidson appearing to retract his apology to Crenshaw on a Netflix special after he had made remarks in the past that were interpreted as an insult. Crenshaw said, “Listen, I can’t get out of Pete Davidson’s head. He’s been — he’s been thinking about me a lot for the past year as he builds this comedy routine apparently. I’m not so sure his jokes always land but it is what it is.” He added, “ … if we took everything that comedians said on a Netflix special seriously, man our country would be in a world of hurt.”
The Daily Beast reported that in his new Netflix stand-up special showing his “Alive from New York” routine, Davidson preached, “I didn’t think I did anything wrong. It was like words that were twisted so that a guy could be famous.” He added, “So I made fun of this guy with an eyepatch and then, like, I kind of got forced to apologize.” He referenced his mother, whom he calls on stage his “roommate,” getting death threats, adding, “My roommate thought I should apologize so that I didn’t get shot in the face.”
The story of Davidson and Crenshaw began in November 2018, when Davidson said about Crenshaw on SNL’s “Weekend Update,” “You may be surprised to hear he’s a Congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie. I’m sorry, I know he lost his eye in war, or whatever.”
Crenshaw responded to Davidson’s initial remark on Twitter, writing, ““Good rule in life: I try hard not to offend; I try harder not to be offended. That being said, I hope @nbcsnlrecognizes that vets don’t deserve to see their wounds used as punchlines for bad jokes.”
Davidson apologized to Crenshaw on-air in another episode.
The exchange between Fox Host Brian Kilmeade and Crenshaw went like this:
Kilmeade: Wow. Here to react, Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw. That roommate we think is his mom. And he basically went on to say, Congressman, that he wasn’t sorry. And that you became more famous because of it.
Crenshaw responded:
Yes. I think he did too, to be fair. Listen, I can’t get out of Pete Davidson’s head. He’s been — he’s been thinking about me a lot for the past year as he builds this comedy routine apparently. I’m not so sure his jokes always land but it is what it is. It’s like our comedic careers are joined at the hip because he can’t stop thinking about me.
It’s a little sad. We had a really good moment at that time in 2018. America liked it. The left and the right liked it. So, we don’t really want to ruin that.I’ll tell you what though, the Pete Davidson I remember, he went out to buy some cigarettes while we were rehearsing and he came back because he had found this lighter that said “Never Forget” on it and he gave that to me as a gesture.
He said this was kind of cool that this happened to come up while he was buying cigarettes. And I think he meant well at the time and can never tell with comedians and who knows how much he had to drink beforehand. I don’t know. We don’t have to — we don’t have to take it too seriously.
Kilmeade: Right. But I just want to know, do you — do you take his apology seriously or do you take his Netflix special comment seriously?
Crenshaw: Hard to say, hard to say. I mean, one’s a Netflix special. Now, to be fair, if we took everything that comedians said on a Netflix special seriously, man our country would be in a world of hurt. Again, I’d like to remember the guy that I saw in person and hung out with that night.
Kilmeade: Got you. We’ll see. I don’t think you did it to be more — I don’t think you joined the military and lost your eye to be more famous.