Conan O’Brien and Zach Galifianakis take on Trump-era comedy: ‘You’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny’

Comedy used to be about making people laugh first — not lecturing audiences about politics — and according to BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere, a few comedians are finally saying out loud what audiences have been thinking for years.

“You’re looking for funny first. You don’t leave out funny,” Stu says, arguing that modern late-night television has largely abandoned comedy in favor of partisan activism.

However, Conan O’Brien appears determined to resist that trend. In a recent interview, O’Brien criticized comics who go “the route of ‘I’m just going to say F Trump all the time.’”

“That’s their comedy,” he said.

“And I think, well, now a little bit you’re being co-opted because you’re so angry. You’ve been lulled. It’s like a siren leading you into the rocks. You’ve been lulled into just saying, ‘F Trump, F Trump,’” he continued.

“And I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger. And that person or any person like that would say, ‘Well, things are too serious now. I don’t need to be funny.’ And I think, well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny,” he explained, adding, “you just have to find a way.”

And Conan isn’t the only comedian that feels this way.

In an interview on his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” comedian Zach Galifianakis recalled an episode he did of “Between Two Ferns” with Hillary Clinton.

“I remember when I interviewed Hillary Clinton, and I could tell she didn’t want to be there, and I totally get that. I get it. But before we had set that whole thing up, they wrote back, ‘Well, you can’t bring up those emails,’” Galifianakis said.

“And I go, ‘Well, we don’t have to do the interview. That’s fine. We won’t do it.’ When you tell powerful people no, it’s crazy. They were like, ‘OK, we’ll do it. You can ask,’” he said, adding, “Because it’s not that important to me to do it the way they want to do it.”

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