David Letterman on Being “Old and Stupid,” And Why Trump Jokes Are Mandatory

In a new interview with New York Magazine, former Late Show show host David Letterman opened up about Donald Trump and how if he was still hosting the show, that’s all he would talk about.

“[C]an you imagine not doing Trump jokes? That would seem bizarre,” he said. “Comedy’s one of the ways that we can protect ourselves. Alec Baldwin deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sadly, he’s not going to get it from this president.”

When asked if CBS f*cked him, he replied, “What do you know? What have you heard? If anybody fucked me up, it was me, by getting old and stupid.”

David also said the last thing he wants to do is watch late night TV, but after hearing great things about Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert, who took over The Late Show, he’s changed his mind somewhat. When it came to the flack Jimmy Fallon received for his so-called “soft ball” interview with Trump, 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. But the thing about it is, you don’t have to concoct a complicated satirical premise to joke about Donald Trump.”

David is no stranger to calling people out:

On interviewing Donald Trump in the past, David said, “He was a joke of a wealthy guy. We didn’t take him seriously. He’d sit down, and I would just start making fun of him. He never had any retort. He was big and doughy, and you could beat him up. He seemed to have a good time, and the audience loved it, and that was Donald Trump.” As far as interviewing Trump now, he said he would start with a list: “You did this. You did that. Don’t you feel stupid for having done that, Don? And who’s this goon Steve Bannon, and why do you want a white supremacist as one of your advisers? Come on, Don, we both know you’re lying. Now, stop it.”