Letterman on 'Trumpy': 'I Would Have Gone to Work' on Him

In October, before Donald Trump was elected president, David Letterman chatted with the New York Times and noted that if he still had a late-night TV show, "I would have gone right after him." The 69-year-old's stance hasn't changed much since, per his latest interview with David Marchese for Vulture—an interview that Letterman noted he missed The Price Is Right for. He's got even more to say now that the man he calls "Trumpy" resides in the Oval Office:

• Letterman declined to burn Jimmy Fallon for his now-famous Trump hair-tousling—"Jimmy got a fantastic viral clip out of that"—but he reiterated that, had he been in Fallon's place, "I would have gone to work on Trump."

• Letterman says he's baffled by Trump's behavior, noting, "He can lie about anything from the time he wakes up to what he has for lunch and he's still the president." But he also says people have to stop rubbernecking and instead brainstorm ways "to protect ourselves from him." "We know he's crazy," he adds. "We gotta take care of ourselves here now."
• Comedy is a way to fight back, Letterman says, noting Alec Baldwin, who has been portraying Trump on SNL, should win a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• Other members of Trump's team don't escape Letterman's gaze: He riffs on fellow Indiana native Mike Pence (who he says only made it into office "because he looks like Bobby Knight"); Steve "the Hunchback of Notre Dame" Bannon; "creepy" Stephen Miller; Kellyanne Conway; and "poor Sean Spicer … a boob who just got out of a cab and now here he is."
• Besides politics, Letterman also talks about his 13-year-old son, Harry; the current state of late-night television; re-learning how to use the phone and buy shoelaces; and his famous beard, after Marchese noted how thrilled he was to be meeting the author of Leaves of Grass.

Read the entire interview, including what Letterman says was his proudest career moment. (Jon Stewart was recently on Letterman's old show mocking Trump.)