Comedian Jerry Seinfeld understands that comedy does not come from hate and that it should not be a forum for propaganda. He also understands that comedians’ number one job is to be funny, not push a political agenda.
Speaking with David Letterman on his Netflix series “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” Seinfeld pulled the opposite of a Jimmy Kimmel and said he’s not interested in Trump jokes.
“Do you do Trump stuff when you go out?” Letterman asked Seinfeld.
Seinfeld humorously changed the subject: “No, it doesn’t interest me. I do a lot of raisin stuff.”
“I just think that it’s interesting that after 80 years, Sun-Maid finally went, ‘Hey, why don’t we put some chocolate on it?’ Imagine not thinking of that for 80 years. So that really gets me excited, that people pay me to talk about those kinds of things.”
Prior to his interview with Seinfeld, Letterman praised Michelle Wolf’s much-maligned White House Correspondents Dinner performance. “I really had great admiration for the fact that she was able to just walk into that room and decimate the place,” said Letterman.
Seinfeld said he didn’t know Wolf and offered only vague compliments about her. In other words, Seinfeld did not take Letterman’s bait by spoiling his goodwill with people in favor of cheap partisan tricks.
Another famous comedian, Jay Leno, has derided the anti-Trump wave among comedians, especially late-night comedians, saying it spoils the fun.
“The trouble is that there’s such negativity now,” Leno said recently. “When I did the show, Bush was dumb and Clinton was horny and it was human problems. Now it’s all anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican, anti-Salvadoran; it’s such a negative thing.”
“Ultimately, it’s depressing,” he continued. “You don’t really watch late-night TV to get away from reality anymore; now it’s more in your face. You laugh but then you go to bed going, ‘Oh man, the world is really pretty rough.’ And it’s not, it’s one man that causes all these problems!”