Conan O’Brien warned that viewers won’t be hearing any political jokes from him on Oscar night.
“I think he’s bad for comedy,” the legendary comedian declared of Trump, 79, on The New Yorker Radio Hour on Friday.
O’Brien, 62, is about to host the Oscars in March for the second consecutive time. He says the president likely won’t be awarded a place among the night’s repertoire of jokes.
“There are comedians who, when they talk about Trump, quickly get very angry,” the former late-night host said. “And I’ve said this before, but I think it’s possible to surrender your best weapon. Your best weapon is to be funny.”
At last year’s Oscars, O’Brien waited three hours to target Trump. At the tail-end of the awards show, the host used Best Picture winner Anora to take a swipe at the president’s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“You know, Anora is having a good night,” O’Brien said after a commercial break. “That’s great news; two wins already. I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.”
Viewers will have to wait to see if O’Brien has new material for the sitting president at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards, but don’t hold your breath.
“When people talk to me about it, I say, ‘Well, all I can do is come out of my own personal experience, which is: this isn’t inspiring a lot of chuckles for me,’” O’Brien told New Yorker editor David Remnick.
“I mean, I am all for people trying. And, when there’s a really good joke about the president or the Administration, if there’s a joke about the right or the left and it’s a good one, I’m elated,” O’Brien added. “I just think that in the current climate, things have gotten so stretched out—think about that Dalí melted watch—that it’s hard to find purchase."
O’Brien previously declared his distaste for comedy that takes aim at the president, saying he flat-out thinks it’s not very funny.
“If you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny. You just have to find a way to channel that anger, because good art will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox,” O’Brien said at an event with the Oxford Union.
As O’Brien noted in his fall interview, the president’s own antics can be so bizarre that further riffing is difficult. Comedy needs a straightman, and when the president is a “very bendy, rubbery line,” it’s difficult to level up the humor.
“There’s a lot that’s so bombastic and so outrageous and so unprecedented that how do you—‘Oh, I’ve got a great Trump impression, and I have him saying this.’ Well, that’s not crazier than what really happened yesterday. So I don’t know how this is funny," O’Brien said.
O’Brien noted that the lesson stemmed from his days as a writer for The Harvard Lampoon, a collegiate comedy publication.
As the publication’s editor, O’Brien often made up fake magazines based on the day’s headlines. But when those headlines were wildly outlandish—he gives the example “Elvis Still Alive, Marries Alien and They Have a Baby That’s a Three-Speed Blender”—finding another layer of comedy is near impossible.
The 98th Academy Awards will air on ABC on March 15. It remains to be seen whether O’Brien, or any of the night’s award-winners, will have something to say about the country’s comedy-killing president.
He did, however, make one more prediction for the big night: “You know what I’d really like? A streaker to slap me.”
