Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Vanity Fair -- Letterman Would Love to Interview Trump and Kim Jong-un on His New Show


After two years in retirement, the former late-night staple will return to TV in 2018 with a show more in line with National Geographic's 'Years of Living Dangerously.'

David Letterman is returning to the small screen but his forthcoming Netflix talk show will be more in line with National Geographic docuseries Years of Living Dangerously -- in which he traveled to India -- than The Late Show.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, David Letterman gave a bit more information about his new Netflix project and named two dream interview subjects: Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

When asked if he had begun considering potential guests, Letterman brought up the North Korean dictator, noting, “I see now where he’s just miniaturized a nuclear weapon that he’s going to put on his rockets. I’d like to talk to this guy because, O.K., the haircut. We get all of that. But honestly, what does he want? They have a missile they think can hit Chicago; what’s he pissed off at Chicago about? Are we at war with this guy? We put sanctions on him, he gets more pissed off. If Dennis Rodman goes over there, I ought to be over there. . . I wouldn’t want to make it worse, but on the other hand, I don’t know that you can make it worse. O.K., you're building rockets; you’ve got nuclear capabilities; O.K., great. What, really, does that help?!”

When asked if Jong-un is “in line with the type of guests” he hopes to bring to the show, the comedian replied, “I don't know that he'd be the prototypical guest but by god, wouldn't you like an hour to just look at this guy and talk to him and listen to him? Does he have kids? Does he have pets? Why does he want to behave like this? If he wants to be a hero, why not start trying to reunite the peninsula? Why not do something that has some humanity to it? I don't get this.”

When asked if he’d like to interview Trump again on his new show, Letterman said, “Yes, I really would love to talk to him. That would be great because I think I have insight now that heretofore I did not have. I'm tired of people saying, ‘Can you believe he. . .” and ‘Oh my god, what has he done . . .’ I want to put an end to that. We all know that there's something unique here. We don't need to keep examining it day after day after day. What we need now is somebody like myself to sit down with him and calmly get him to sign some papers and then have him leave the White House.”

Here’s the rest of the story:


By Laura Bradley