Jay Leno says he’s still catching flak for a decades-old comedic principle: refusing to turn his act into a political weapon. In an interview released Sept. 9 on the “Unexpired” podcast, the former “Tonight Show” host explained that when he performs in front of live, politically mixed crowds — including audiences in states like Indiana — he keeps the focus on laughs, not ideology.
“I get beat up for this all the time, but as someone who works in the real world, when you go to Indiana, I’m sorry, a third of your audience is going to be Trump people,” Leno told host Kim Alexis.
Leno hosted NBC’s “The Tonight Show” for more than two decades and has long argued that touring comedians face a different reality than television hosts who broadcast to a national audience through a single network lens. Performing in front of a live crowd in a place like Indiana, he suggests, means reckoning directly with viewers who back President Trump — and choosing not to write them off.
Leno pointed back to his own on-air partnership with predecessor Johnny Carson as a model for that approach.
“I mean, Johnny and I used to pride ourselves on making fun of both sides equally. Now I get beaten up for that. But OK, that’s all right.”
A widening divide in late night
Entertainment journalist Christian Toto, founder of Hollywood in Toto, told Fox News Digital Wednesday that Leno’s stance highlights a split between stand-up comics who tour nationally and television hosts who’ve settled into a narrower, more politically defined audience.
“Late-night hosts don’t care who they alienate in 2026. They’ve chosen an audience. Period. Jimmy Kimmel infamously said of his Republican fans, ‘not good riddance,’ but riddance. That says it all,” Toto said.
Toto was referencing a 2017 “CBS Sunday Morning” interview in which Kimmel was asked if he minded losing Republican viewers after speaking out on healthcare and gun policy. Kimmel’s answer: “Well, not good riddance, but riddance.”
Toto also cited Jimmy Fallon’s 2016 interview with then-candidate Donald Trump, during which Fallon tousled Trump’s hair on “The Tonight Show.” Fallon later said he regretted not pushing back harder against the backlash that followed, and denied the segment was meant to “normalize” Trump.
“Jimmy Fallon had a chance to be the new Jay Leno, the apolitical yukster who just wanted to make the country laugh,” Toto said. “Sadly, after he tousled Donald Trump’s hair on ‘The Tonight Show’ in 2016, he was hounded by the media and the left for humanizing the real estate mogul.”
A consistent message over the years
Leno’s comments to “Unexpired” are the latest in a string of similar remarks. A few years ago he said he’d largely dropped politics from his stand-up because audiences wanted to know upfront whether a joke was “for or against” their side before they’d laugh at it.
In a 2025 appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he made a similar case — that political comedy works best when people are willing to laugh at jokes aimed at their own side, not just the other one.
This summer, in an interview with Deadline, Leno said modern audiences are “all over the place” politically, and singled out Joe Rogan as “the new Johnny Carson,” citing podcasts as a growing alternative to traditional late-night television.
“Like I said, we used to brag about the fact that Johnny and I would try to make fun of both sides equally. Looks like that doesn’t work anymore.”
