Donald Trump is lashing out again—this time at late-night icon David Letterman, after the comedy legend dared to call him what many have for years: an “authoritarian.”
Letterman’s remarks came Thursday during a conversation with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic Festival. Speaking about the ongoing fallout from Jimmy Kimmel’s abrupt suspension by ABC, Letterman didn’t mince words.
“We see where this is all going, correct? It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”
That was all it took for Trump to take to Truth Social the next day with a jab aimed directly at Letterman’s jugular.
“Whatever happened to the very highly overrated David Letterman, whose ratings were never very good, either,” Trump posted. “He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!”
This latest flare-up follows Kimmel’s sudden suspension on Wednesday, just hours after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened Disney, ABC’s parent company, over Kimmel’s Monday night monologue. Kimmel had taken aim at the MAGA movement’s reaction to the murder of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel had said.
The blowback came fast. Carr, speaking to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, went full mob boss.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr warned. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
BREAKING: The FCC Chairman is threatening immediate action against Jimmy Kimmel, ABC, and Disney for deliberately misleading the public by claiming Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Conservative.
Chairman Brendan Carr calls Kimmel’s malicious lies are “truly sick” and says they… pic.twitter.com/mGhtGMPReI
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 17, 2025
Letterman didn’t let that line slide. “Who is hiring these goons? Mario Puzo?” he quipped to Goldberg, mocking the mafioso tone.
The whole thing reeks of what Letterman called out: a media climate under threat. Networks afraid of political retribution. Executives bowing to authoritarian pressure. Comedians punished for speaking truth to power.
And Trump, of course, can’t resist throwing gasoline on the fire—especially when it means targeting a comedy legend.
Letterman, for his part, remains untouchable among his peers. A pioneer of late-night TV, he hosted nearly 2,000 episodes of Late Night with David Letterman and is credited with shaping the very genre that gave Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, and others their careers. Kimmel himself has called Letterman the “main reason he got into television.”
But Trump has never shown respect for the lineage—or the art—of comedy. Letterman is just the latest in a long line of late-night hosts the former president has gone after. His Truth Social page is a graveyard of rants demanding the firing of Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert. When CBS announced The Late Show was coming to an end, Trump immediately posted that Kimmel was “NEXT.”
This isn’t just about personal grudges. It’s about control. About who gets to speak, and who gets silenced.
Despite Trump’s attempt to dismiss him as a “LOSER!!!”, Letterman has made it clear he’s not backing down. He’s not on network television anymore—he doesn’t have sponsors to appease or execs breathing down his neck. And unlike some, he’s not afraid to call a bully what he is.
