Comedian Jim Gaffigan, whose stand-up routine famously doesn’t delve into politics, says he regrets his criticisms of Donald Trump were taken as a personal shot at the President-elect’s supporters.
“I regret that people think that I was criticizing people that support Trump,” Gaffigan told The Daily Beast in an interview of his past social media posts.
“And that was never the intention. I regret — someone said like, ‘Now I can’t follow you anymore,’ and I kind of said ‘F you’ to them.”
However, Gaffigan said being authentic was really important for his stand-up routine, as well as with his children.
“For me, I don’t regret it, but I also do acknowledge that there are true die-hard Trump fans who probably enjoyed my comedy, but because they feel so passionately will never forgive me,” he said.
Ahead of the 2020 election, Gaffigan posted a warning to his followers on X, then known as Twitter, about giving Trump a second term as president, one of the few times he waded into politics.
“You know Trump just creates enemies,” he wrote. “You know you can’t trust him. You know he been incompetent during this crisis [COVID-19]. You know all those people didn’t need to die. Trump talks about the Space Program and you can’t safely go to a movie. Wake up.”
Gaffigan also spoke about his performance at the Al Smith dinner for Catholic charities, held before the election, which Trump attended but Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had backed out from appearing.
“I knew going into it that I was going to get criticism from both sides,” he said. “I’m not a roast comedian. I mean, I love politics, but I just don’t talk about it. So I knew that if I did jokes about either side that there was going to be some blowback.”
He said it was worth showing up to the fundraiser after turning down two invitations from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
“I knew that it was going to feel like a Trump home game,” he said. “And I knew that if Kamala was there, there were going to be people that were very protective.
“But what I thought was interesting about this election is, and maybe because it was so important, and maybe because it was such a short election for Kamala, that people were like, don’t criticize her. And my whole thing is, that’s actually bad to have to have that approach. And I think in hindsight, a lot of people feel that way.”
However, the comedian acknowledged that losing fans comes with the job.
“Something I’ve noticed in doing stand-up for so long is, you’re going to lose people. You’re also going to attract people. But there are going to be people who are like, you know, ‘I don’t have kids, I think he’s funny, but I don’t get this.’”