David Letterman shares more Donald Trump thoughts, talks off-camera drama
Who knew that we would be getting so much conversation and play out of David Letterman at this point in the Presidential race?
Yesterday, we wrote about how the former “Late Show” host would have treated Donald Trump (who was at one point a frequent guest on his show) in the event that he was to come on and do an interview. Now, we’ve got some further stories about the relationship between the two behind the scenes. Letterman appeared at the New Yorker Festival on Friday for a far-ranging interview, and specifically speaking to Susan Morrison (per Deadline), he recounted how previously referring to Trump as “racist” on the show ended up causing some issues away from it:
“…He started messing around with the birthers, and how did a guy like [Barack Obama] get into Columbia, how did a guy like him get into Harvard, and I started thinking..break down the innuendo about that. We started talking about it one night on the show, without Trumpy, and I said, Well, maybe if he’s a racist we shouldn’t invite him on the show.
“So then I had to call Don because he said he wasn’t coming back on the show, and I said Don I don’t think you’re a racist because you’re too smart. I don’t think smart people are racists, and he said, ‘Well of course I’m smart and I’m not a racist,’ and I said ‘there you go, you’ve proven my point, come back and be on the show.’ And he came back and did the show two or three times after that and I thought the deal was done. I’d called him out and said he’s too smart to be a racist. Well, I was wrong.”
Trump has done much of the late-night circuit over the course of the past several months, most notably doing a “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” interview where the host was criticized for “softball” questions and not getting into any serious discussion. Trump has also appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and bashed “Late Night with Seth Meyers” after the host banned him from the show. He also proclaimed that John Oliver invited him “multiple times” to be on “Last Week Tonight,” something the HBO host denied later. (Photo: CBS.)