‘Time for cowardice is over’: Comedian Paula Poundstone has things to say to Trump
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Paula Poundstone has posted direct-address videos to Donald Trump using satire.
- She joins protests, cites historian Heather Cox Richardson, to amplify “resistance.”
- She acknowledges risks to entertainers but insists the time for cowardice is over.
Funny woman Paula Poundstone is a little busy these days.
A new comedy tour brings her to Kansas City’s Folly Theater on Saturday. (Seats are limited.) She still answers questions about current events as a regular panelist on NPR’s news quiz show, “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!”
She hosts a weekly comedy podcast, “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone.”
Now she’s speaking every day with the President of the United States. Sort of.
Last year before Election Day, the diehard Democrat began posting messages to him on her social media accounts. They begin like this: “Hey Donald Trump, it’s me, Paula Poundstone.”
And then, she lets it rip.
Using humor, she’s criticized Trump about the ballroom being built at the White House and mocked him for appearing to fall asleep in court and sleep standing up next to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
She jabbed at him for being upset that historians ranked Abraham Lincoln above him on their most recent list of best U.S. presidents; Trump was near the bottom.
Once she suggested he try doing something new and take a job with ICE.
Another time she accused the president of being as single-minded about making money as her overweight cat, Larry, is about food. (Larry has his own fans.)
She invoked Pam Bondi’s bosom in a video Wednesday that she titled “Trump’s Tears” in which the California resident applauded New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech.
(Please don’t get her started on Stephen Miller and hairless cats.)
Poundstone obviously subscribes to the “laughter is the best medicine” philosophy.
“I’m so glad that you’re here because you know what? Laughter is really good for stress,” she said to begin a stand-up routine on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in May.
“And we have been under so much stress, right? I would argue since the gold escalator but certainly the last period of time, just so stressful.”
She was right there with the estimated 7 million people who participated in the No Kings protests last month. She walked with protesters in Burlington, Vermont, one of about 2,700 towns and cities that hosted rallies.
Of course a comedian would notice the protesters wearing inflatable frog costumes.
The day before the rallies Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called them “hate America” gatherings.
“I do not hate America. I love America,” Poundstone told The Star in a recent interview. “The more you see what’s coming our way, the more you go, boy, it’s so taken for granted what we’ve had.
“So yeah, I’m in there pitching. And the rally? As everyone has said, phenomenal. So much fun. There’s going to be frogs in our history books ... who cannot be grateful for that?”
The restless nation is at the top of her mind as she tours. Here’s what one reviewer in Santa Barbara wrote earlier this year.
“Paula Poundstone bounded onto the stage of the Lobero last week wearing a big friendly smile and a bright red suit, armed with the same type of conversational, down-to-earth humor she’s been charming audiences with for more than 40 years.
“We have been through so (freaking) much, have we not!” was her greeting.
“As the audience laughed a bit ruefully, she added, “We’re all responding the way brains respond. … It’s crazy-making to be lied to every day.”
She is keenly aware of what’s happened lately to her comedic brethren who criticize Trump.
Colbert lost his late-night gig. His bosses called it a “purely financial decision,” but many of his fans and fellow entertainers who rushed to support him consider it punitive. Jimmy Kimmel almost lost his show over comments he made after Charlie Kirk’s death.
Over the weekend Trump launched another assault on Seth Meyers, calling the Emmy-winning host of “Late Night” a “truly deranged lunatic” and claiming Meyers’ jokes about him are “probably illegal.” Meyers fired back on Monday.
All of which gives Poundstone a little pause, but only a little.
“Yeah, but at the same time I’m not Colbert and I’m not Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t have a platform that large,” she said. “So in a way, that serves me very well because I’m under the radar. Although I have to say, Trump is petulant enough he would make collateral damage of smaller people and not care at all.
“Having said that, the answer is yes. Do I think about that? Yes. Have I ever been worried about that? Yes ... and then I remind myself that the time for cowardice is over.”
Lately, she’s become a fan of historian Heather Cox Richardson. The popular Boston College history professor writes a daily email newsletter “Letters from an American” and hosts a weekly question-and-answer series, Politics Chat on YouTube and Facebook, where she has 3.4 million followers.
People regularly ask Richardson what they can do about what’s happening in the country now, Poundstone said.
“She says get your voice out there, make your voice heard. She actually said make videos,” said Poundstone. “So I had this idea for a video, I forget what the first one was. But it was talking directly to Donald Trump.”
When people began responding positively to the Trump videos, Poundstone hired an editor and began posting them daily.
“It’s hours and hours of work. It’s not like I had hours and hours of free time in any given day,” Poundstone said.
“But ... it’s a cruel circle because then what happens is there are comments, right, and you’re stupid enough to read the comments and people say things like, oh my gosh, this is getting me through.
“I am a sucker for the ‘oh my gosh this is getting me through’ line. When someone tells me that I’m like, then I must do it. And truth be told, the first reason I’m doing it is to be part of the resistance.”
She likened her political activity to a scene in the 1979 Robert Duvall movie, “The Great Santini.” Duvall is fighting with his son as his wife (Blythe Danner) tries to stop them.
Meanwhile, the little brother “just starts wailing on the dad and dad doesn’t even know it because the kid is that ineffectual, because he’s little,” she said.
“I am the little kid. I’m just trying to be a spoke in the wheel. I’m wailing on Trump and he doesn’t even know it. I’m just like, ‘Stop it, stop it, cut it out, stop it.’
“The truth is, if we all, if everybody does something, everybody puts an oar in the water some way, we will get there. I don’t know when and I know things will get worse before they get better. He’ll (bleeping) knock down the whole (bleeping) White House down. How about that image?”
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