Sidekick extraordinaire Andy Richter seized the spotlight to slam President Donald Trump for his attacks on talk show hosts.
“Fuck that guy,” he told Entertainment Weekly this week.
Richter, who wrote, announced and played wingman for Conan O’Brien on “Late Night,” “The Tonight Show” and “Conan” over the decades, said the two of them would have gone hard at the administration in the current climate.
“We would be doing what everyone else of them is doing, which is all gas and no brakes,” Richter told the show business site.
Richter slammed the administration’s inability to take a joke and advised Trump and Co. to simply ignore the cracks. Meanwhile, he couldn’t help taking a cheap shot at the president.
“That they have to take so seriously and use the wheels of government to crush joke-makers. It is just so indicative of, I wanna say, small dick,” he snapped.
The talk show scene has taken a gloomy turn since “Conan” went dark for good in 2021. In July CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show” and its Trump-taunting host Stephen Colbert. The show will end in May.
Then came the industry earthquake of Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off the air by parent Disney in September under reported pressure by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission ― over a remark about MAGA and the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel returned several days later but had already ignited concerns over censorship.
The tense atmosphere remains. Trump has intensified his attacks on “Late Night” host Seth Meyers and continues to menace Kimmel.
“If you’re going after the joke-makers, you’re probably wrong,” Richter told EW. “That’s just a general rule that I would ... recommend for everyone to go on.”