Well, this all seems about right. On Tuesday, former Tonight Show host Jay Leno appeared on the third hour of the Today show and said he doesn’t miss being a late-night host, because nowadays, “everyone has to know your politics.” Rather than offending both sides equally as he once did, Leno said, people now see late-night hosts as “one-sided,” which makes the job tougher than it was in his day. And on Wednesday, Donald Trump—having apparently heard of his old NBC network-mate’s appraisal via Fox & Friends—decided to chime in.
“‘Jay Leno points out that comedy (on the very boring late night shows) is totally one-sided. It’s tough when there’s only one topic,’” Trump tweeted, indicating that he was quoting something that had just been said on Fox & Friends by at-mentioning the series. “Actually, the one-sided hatred on these shows is incredible and for me, unwatchable,” he continued. “But remember, WE are number one - President!”
In truth, Leno’s comment was more nuanced than Trump (or Fox) gave him credit for. In full, what he said was this: “I kind of used Johnny [Carson]’s model [on Tonight]. People couldn't figure out—‘Well, you and your Republican friends’; ‘Well, Mr. Leno, you and your Democratic buddies.’ And I would get hate mail from both sides equally, and I went, ‘Oh that’s fabulous. That’s exactly what I want.’ But when people see you as one-sided, it just makes it tough. And plus, you know, I did it when, you know, Clinton was horny and Bush was dumb. It was just a little easier. You know, now it’s all very serious.”
“I’d just like to see a bit of civility come back to it, you know?” Leno continued. “People say, ‘It must be easy to do jokes with Trump.’ No, it’s actually harder. Because the punch line of a joke used to be, ‘That’s like the president with a porn star.’ Well, now the president is with a porn star! Where do you go with that? How do you get more outrageous than that?”
Conveniently, Trump appears not to have seen the part where Leno joked about presidents and porn stars—but regardless of how he interprets Leno, it’s hard to miss the irony of this president, citing Fox News as a source, complaining about anything being one-sided.
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