{"id":453575,"date":"2026-05-17T14:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453575\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T14:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T14:12:07","slug":"trump-wants-johnny-carson-back-he-might-want-to-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453575\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Wants Johnny Carson Back. He Might Want to Think Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDonald Trump<\/a> is not a fan of late-night television.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe president has criticized Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Bill Maher, and even Jimmy Fallon. Other than Greg Gutfeld on Fox News, his disdain for the current crop of late-night hosts is inexhaustible. It has recently led him to call on ABC to take Kimmel off the air, and even threaten to sue the network.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has said he wishes that legendary late night host Johnny Carson<\/a> was back from the dead to host The Tonight Show. \u201cWhere\u2019s Johnny Carson? Bring back Johnny,\u201d he said while campaigning in 2024. A few years earlier, Trump called modern late-night hosts \u201cweak\u201d compared to Carson, who \u201cdid a great job\u201d and \u201cwasn\u2019t political.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe president might want to rethink his wish that Carson was still on the air. The late-night legend relentlessly made fun of Trump when he was an attention-hungry real estate developer in the \u201880s and early \u201890s. For example:<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnny as his famous Carnac the Magnificent using mystic powers first gave the answer, \u201cPhantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Donald Trump\u2019s mouth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe host then ripped open the envelope and read, \u201cName three things in New York that may run forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother Carson quip: \u201cA black hole is a collapsed neutron star of such intense gravity that even Donald Trump\u2019s ego could not escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Trump\u2019s bankruptcies: \u201cDonald Trump was supposed to be with us tonight, but he called from the Motel 6 and said he missed his bus,\u201d and \u201cThe other day I saw Donald Trump on the street with a sign that said, \u2018Will Sell the Plaza Hotel for Food\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Trump as a bully: \u201cHave you seen the latest game out from Milton Bradley called Trump? Yeah, from Donald Trump. You roll the dice and you land on a spot, and it says \u2018Evict an Elderly Couple, Collect $1 million in Property Taxes\u2019. It comes with dice, a board, and a little plastic set of homeless people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarson once read a mock memo written by Trump to children\u2019s TV host Mister Rogers: \u201cIt\u2019s my neighborhood now. Take your crummy sweater and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tSome have argued that Carson was not political. Not true. There\u2019s little chance he would have let up on Trump if he were in the White House.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs someone who has interviewed over 400 people about Carson for my book, Love Johnny Carson<\/a>, I can attest that he could be brutal to politicians. He hammered everyone, upsetting numerous presidents and their families with his barbed jokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNancy Reagan phoned Carson to complain about his jokes about Ronnie. Gerald Ford blamed Carson\u2019s jokes for the perception that he was a \u201cstumbler.\u201d During then-Senator Joe Biden\u2019s plagiarism scandal in 1987, Carson skewed him for months, and Biden ultimately dropped out of the 1988 presidential race.<\/p>\n

\n\tNobody in authority, neither Republican nor Democrat, was spared.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, Carson had a heart. When at the height of Watergate he learned that Nixon was abusing alcohol, he stopped attacking the president. He also wasn\u2019t afraid to make his political views clear on the air.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarson expressed outrage \u2014 and said so on his show \u2014 when in 1978 a 19-year-old college freshman was sentenced to 12 years for selling a third of an ounce of marijuana. Carson called the punishment \u201cunbelievable\u201d and \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his monologues, he made clear his distain for singer turned anti-gay activist Anita Bryant for months. In 1977, in Dade County, Florida, Bryant fought to remove an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. One newspaper\u2019s headline read, \u201cCarson Is Turning Anita Bryant into a National Laughingstock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCarson hosted the 1972 Emmy Awards when The Johnny Mann Singers performed an overly patriotic song as the Vietnam War raged on. Following the musical number, Carson sarcastically quipped, \u201cWar bonds are on sale in the lobby,\u201d to thunderous applause. Carson\u2019s line was met with outrage by conservatives.<\/p>\n

\n\tCarson\u2019s boldest political move came in 1968, when he invited singer and actor Harry Belafonte, a well-known civil rights activist, to host The Tonight Show for an entire week. \u201cInvite whatever guests you want,\u201d said Johnny. Belafonte booked guests who were outspoken about civil rights and against the Vietnam War. The list that terrified NBC included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSimply put: Carson was a rebel and a radical.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJimmy Kimmel is no Johnny Carson,\u201d FCC Chair Brendan Carr said last September amid a pressure campaign that led ABC to pull Kimmel off the air for a week \u2014 but Carr has no idea how Johnny would have gone after Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think he\u2019d be offended and angered by Trump,\u201d Carson writer Michael Barrie told a journalist<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cJohnny was the epitome of decorum and good manners and midwestern reticence \u2014 and Trump is the antithesis of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI can only imagine how Carson\u2019s comic genius would rip apart a man who has provided more fodder for late-night comedians than nearly any public figure in American history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump is not a fan of late-night television. The president has criticized Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2126,969,93,61,60,3484,196859,282],"class_list":["post-453575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-controversy","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-johnny-carson","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}