I don't regret. I regret that people think that I was criticizing people that support Trump. That was never the intention. I don't regret it. But I also do acknowledge that there are [00:00:16] true diehard Trump fans that, you know, probably enjoyed my comedy, that because they feel so passionately will never forgive me. - You're going to lose people. - Comedian Jim Gaffigan. They're talking about the sort of mixed feelings he has about the fact [00:00:33] that he's been pretty clear in the past about what he thinks about Donald Trump. Now, his his comedy very rarely has anything to do with politics, which made his comments on social media sort of stand out. He's a guy that often talks about his family or about, [00:00:48] horses or food or whatever. And full disclosure is one of my favorite comedians, and he has appeared on our network before. But it is interesting that he's received backlash even for the limited comments he's made. So here's one from back in 2020, which was obviously a difficult time. [00:01:03] We were all spending perhaps too much time on social media. So at that point he had tweeted, look Trumpers, I get it. As a kid I was a Cubs fan and I know you stick by your team no matter what, but he's a traitor and a con man who doesn't care about you. Deep down, you know it. I'm sure you enjoy pissing people off, but you know, Trump is a liar and a criminal. [00:01:22] I think that everything he said is just objectively true. But that said, that's going to bother people who might on some level know that it's true, but not mind or would prefer not to think about it. And so he did receive some pushback for that. So more recently, he was on The Last Laugh podcast with The Daily Beast, Matt [00:01:41] Wilstein, and he was asked about whether he has these regrets and everything, and he does seem focused on he doesn't want the Trump fans to think that he was personally attacking them. But anyway, listen to a little bit from that. I regret that people think that I was [00:01:57] criticizing people that support Trump. That was never the intention. It was, I you know, I regret kind of I mean, I definitely someone said, like, now I can't follow you anymore. And I would kind of said f you to them. [00:02:15] But some of it it's weird because I think authenticity is really an important thing, and not only as a comedian, but also with your children. Right. And so I was sitting at home with these kids, and I do feel as though it's weird because you stood on both sides. [00:02:35] You see people that come out against, you know, Trump and people that come out against Kamala or Biden or whatever, or the Democrats. And it really from my perspective, I'm like that. That doesn't seem worth it. But there is something about an authenticity. [00:02:54] And again, it's not core to his comedy, but he apparently felt like he needed to get involved. And that, by the way, was obviously in the lead up to the the previous election. But anyway, he has received some strike back. He seems unsure about whether it's had lingering impacts. But I'll start with you. What do you what do you make about that? [00:03:10] And more generally, about people who are not normally political, maybe some athletes or musicians or actors sort of making clear what they think? Yeah, I think it's important if what you do is sell your wares to the public, that you make it clear that you're not insulting roughly half of the public. [00:03:27] Right. People who voted for this guy, that's generally a good idea to not alienate an audience just off the bat by, dissing them. However, what I would say to MAGA people and I get it, if you're a right winger and you know you've consumed culture for the last 30, [00:03:46] 40 years, it's basically been, you know, elite culture is liberal culture. Like if you're watching TV or movies, it's generally liberal culture. And I can understand how you can get tired of it or whatever. I just what I would say to them is like, I don't think most celebrities [00:04:01] have great politics, like, and you should just get over it. Like, you know, I don't agree with Vince Vaughn or Adam Sandler's right wing natures, but I enjoyed Uncut Gems. I watched Bad Monkey on Apple TV plus and it was completely fine. [00:04:17] Like, get over it. That's what I would say to these people. Get over it. I love that. Yeah. I mean, enjoy the comedians and their timing and their skills. And what is it people say you shouldn't take Donald Trump literally. You should take him seriously. Well, you should take the comedians and their skills seriously, [00:04:35] but don't take their views literally or something like that. I mean, they're comedians. And likewise, I do think it's it's difficult, though. I mean, the one area where I sort of disagree a little bit is I think that it's I think it is difficult to sort of find that line between criticizing Donald Trump and [00:04:53] what you're saying about his followers, that by saying Donald Trump is a con man, well, the people who follow him then are getting conned. What does that say about them? And then we get into the whole debate about are most Americans stupid or most Americans illiterate? Are most Americans simply misinformed, or have they been misinformed by Fox News? [00:05:12] And they've got a lot of garbage in their brains over the last three years that you can't erase in a three month presidential election. It's difficult to have that argument. And so I just think we should all be transparent about what do we believe about Donald Trump and what do we believe about his followers? I do believe that people who tend to be lower information, [00:05:31] people who are not as intellectual, they fall for Donald Trump's crap more than people who are higher intellectuals, who are higher thinking. That doesn't mean that all Trump people are stupid, or all smart people support Democrats. - But I think there's a ratio there. - Yeah. [00:05:47] And by the way, you can acknowledge that and feel empathy for the fact that these people are being targeted not just by Donald Trump or whatever, but by the entire media sphere of, you know, podcasters and shows and people trying to get them to buy anti-woke beer and everything. [00:06:05] Like, I know a lot of a lot of Trump fans will feel, maybe rightfully so, disrespected by the way some Democrats or liberals talk about them and you're totally free. And it's fair to do that. But like when someone tries to sell you anti-woke banking services or whatever, [00:06:21] like they're disrespecting you way worse. To be clear, Jim Gaffigan is at least being clear about what he believes. And what I would say is I consider myself and pretty much everybody on this panel to be pretty smart person. People. Excuse me. And we believed in the rhetoric, the populist, soaring rhetoric of Barack [00:06:39] Obama that he was for the people, by the people, of the people. That man's administration was all about the moneyed interests of this country. We got duped, too. We're smart as hell, and we get duped just like the MAGA people. I mean, I would argue that Barack's game was a lot sharper and better [00:06:55] and more believable, but hey, whatever, that might be a coping mechanism. Perhaps. Perhaps. Well, we've got we got a few more minutes. I think we can go to this last clip because Gaffigan was at the he performed at the Al Smith dinner just last year, [00:07:12] actually, and then he did another podcast on The Daily Beast with Samantha Bee and Joanna Coles, and, and he had a little bit more to say about maybe his fears going forward about Donald Trump and his willingness to direct his followers at people he doesn't like. [00:07:27] There was like this calculation that if he's like, I don't like this guy, he could bring it up and tell people and his loyalists would be like, whatever you want, we'll take him out. You know what I mean? It's like there are people in the entertainment industry [00:07:43] that have, like, a security detail. Yes. And you're like, do you really need that? And they're like, yeah, I do. - And I'm. - Like, yeah. Really? And they're like, yeah. And so like. That's just weird. - I mean. - And I think that. Trump does have a certain amount of sense of humor. [00:08:01] - But. - He could sic people on someone. Yeah. I don't know about that sense of humor thing. I might disagree with him there, but, but yeah, I would I would be concerned about that. Donald Trump is not, you know, above commenting on comedians or actors he doesn't like, like how many times has he sent out messages about Jimmy Kimmel [00:08:19] or Stephen Colbert or Alec Baldwin? He does it constantly. The dude does not like being criticized, which I get most people don't. But he also has no ability whatsoever to do anything other than seek out the criticism and expose himself to the people mocking him. He can't just ignore it. [00:08:35] And I will remind everyone, you know, remember Cesar Sayoc? Like he put together a list of politicians and other people, people in the news that he wanted to pipe bomb and oh, what do you know, it was the specific like, you know, 18 of the people that came up most often [00:08:53] in Donald Trump's rally speeches, like a a really unlikely combination of people. Now, that was a number of years ago. Maybe it won't happen again. It definitely seems like recently Trump affiliated people that want to commit acts of violence weirdly target Trump or his buildings for some reason, which I [00:09:09] don't understand rather than his critics. But I understand people being concerned. There's a lot more political violence, seemingly than there used to be, and you never know if you could be on that list. So any final thoughts, David, about any of that? Well, and my fear is that the violence is only going to get worse because I [00:09:25] think the greatest thing that's coming. I shouldn't say the greatest, but the worst thing that's coming from the Trump administration is I think our economy is going to crash. He's going to explode the deficit. Inflation is going to go crazy. If he gets the tariffs and we're all going to be paying a lot money, I think the economy is going to tank. And if you look at what caused some of the, you know, mental breakdowns [00:09:43] of so many people who engage in mass shootings and mass violence, even the guy out here in Las Vegas, I mean, he had sort of a mental crackup because of PTSD, but he also had some financial concerns, reportedly. Well, when there's greater financial concerns across the country and you have people, more and more people who are going bankrupt or people who lose all their [00:10:00] savings in the market, whatever it is, if the economy goes south, then we become even more unhinged. And that's where I fear that in this environment where it's okay somehow to sort of personalize your hatred towards people, well, then you actually have targets and all it takes is, oh my God, [00:10:18] the economy goes south and suddenly people are going hungry and they've lost all faith in institutions. It must be the immigrants fault. It must be Jon's fault or Walesa's fault or Schuster's fault. Probably was. We're all, like, in danger. I mean, so it's a scary time. [00:10:35] I hear it all I'm hearing is if I see Scott Baio out in LA, I gotta put him in a headlock. All right, that's. That's all I'm hearing. If I see a mega celebrity out in these streets. John, we gotta put hands on these folks. That's all. That's all it is. [00:10:50] Watch out. Some of them might be litigious. They could use the funds. We're not making any threats to anybody, okay? Dean Cain. Just kidding. Get off the phone with your lawyer. Kidding. - Yeah, we're all just kidding, guys. - Yeah. Kid Rock, don't go shooting up any beers. With Miller alone when you see him. 100%. [00:11:07] Thanks for watching The Young Turks. Really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows [00:11:26] and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.