Letterman calls Trump a 'goon': 'I don't like this man'

Suzy Byrne
·Editor, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

David Letterman has not softened up — well, at least when it comes to Trump.

In a preview of his interview on Sunday Today With Willie Geist, the host talked about the president, who made more than 30 appearances on his CBS late-night show when he was still in the game.

“As an American, I don't like this man as a president of our country,” Letterman, 72, said. “I love being an American, but I don't feel he represents me and I don’t like that.”

Letterman said that, “Even with other presidents that I've disagreed with politically, I felt like, okay, I can live with their representation. But I'm sick and tired of everybody wringing their hands about this.”

He is looking ahead to 2020, saying, “Let's just settle this at the next election. Let’s just stop yakking about what a goon he is.”

Letterman, who’s promoting the second season of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman was also asked about how he thinks the late-night crew has been handling the Trump administration.

“The people who are in charge now do a really good job of it,” he replied. “As I've said before, it's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – as soon as you're done, you got to start all over — and it would be the same night after night after night after night.”

Letterman said he’s glad he’s no longer in late night, after retiring in 2015, due to the fact that he’d probably say something really “inelegant” or “ugly” about Trump. He said in this era, where people are forced to apologize more, he’d then be forced to say sorry to Trump.

“You can’t apologize to this guy,” he said.

While Letterman and Trump mostly had a cordial relationship when the NYC businessman dropped by the Late Show more than 30 times, Letterman called out the reality star too. He branded him a racist for promoting the lie that Barack Obama was not born in America and called him out for manufacturing his clothing line overseas, among things.

Letterman infamously said in 2016 that he didn’t think there was “a chance in hell that” Trump would “be elected president.” The next year, he said that the American people should focus their energies on getting Trump out of office.

"And other people have made this point: If the guy was running Dairy Queen, he'd be gone," Letterman said. "This guy couldn't work at the Gap. So why do we have to be victimized by his fecklessness, his ignorance?"

That same year, he said in an interview with GQ that Trump “makes me sick.” He added, “I’m disappointed that this man is representing me and my country,” and called Trump “a man without a core, a man without a soul.”

During a recent appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show, Letterman quipped that the one question he has for Trump is, “Don, why are you such a putz?”

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