Jay Leno says he still catches heat for refusing to turn his comedy into a partisan weapon, telling the “Unexpired” podcast in an interview released last Wednesday that he keeps his material even-handed because his audiences, unlike many late-night TV crowds, are not politically uniform.
Leno, who spent more than two decades hosting NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” pointed specifically to states like Indiana as an example of the mixed rooms he plays.
“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 said.
Leno told host Kim Alexis that his goal on stage is still to get laughs, not to score political points. He recalled that he and Johnny Carson made a point of splitting their jokes evenly between both parties during their years hosting “The Tonight Show.”
“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,” Leno said.
Entertainment journalist Christian Toto, founder of Hollywood in Toto, told Fox News Digital that Leno’s stance sets him apart from television hosts who have openly embraced one side of the political divide. Toto pointed to Jimmy Kimmel, who has acknowledged losing Republican viewers as his show grew more political.
“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.
Kimmel made that comment during a 2017 “CBS Sunday Morning” interview, when he was asked whether he minded Republican viewers leaving his program after his commentary on healthcare and gun policy.
“Well, not good riddance, but riddance,” Kimmel said.
Toto also cited Jimmy Fallon’s 2016 interview with then-candidate Donald Trump, in 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.”
Leno has made the same point repeatedly in recent years. A few years back, he said he had largely dropped politics from his stand-up because audiences now want to know whether a joke is “for or against” their side before they’ll even laugh. In a 2025 interview at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he again argued that political humor works best when people are willing to laugh at jokes aimed at their own side.
This summer, Leno told Deadline that today’s audiences are “all over the place” politically, and he called podcaster Joe Rogan “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,” Leno said.
