Chris Wallace Laughs It Up With Obama Jokewriter Judd Apatow Over ‘Your Beatdown Of Donald Trump And The Scars That It Left’
CNN anchor Chris Wallace shared laughs with filmmaker Judd Apatow over the “beatdown” of then-mogul Donald Trump by President Barack Obama at the WHCD — that Apatow helped engineer.
New episodes of Wallace’s series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace premiered on HBO Max Friday, featuring in-depth interviews with filmmaker Judd Apatow, Chef José Andrés, and baseball great Alex Rodriguez.
In the Apatow episode, Wallace dissected the filmmaker’s oeuvre, talked “cancel culture,” and covered a variety of other topics. He wrapped up by asking about that fateful 2011 dinner, which some wags peg as the moment Trump decided to seek the presidency:
WALLACE: Finally, it has been suggested that you are responsible for Donald Trump becoming president of the United States.
APATOW: How dare you? How dare you.
WALLACE: And, you know, the the the allegation, the assertion, which I think even David Axelrod made, which was that you participated in writing jokes for Barack Obama for the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, where he famously went after a fellow in the audience named Donald Trump and we have some of that.
[CLIP]
APATOW: There’s a funny part of that shot that I just noticed, it looks like Rick Scott but it might not be
WALLACE: No, it was Rick Scott. I noticed that for the first time too, the Senator from…
APATOW: With a sycophant looks like he’s literally doing this the whole time. Like, is he laughing?
WALLACE: And this was, this is for a real estate mogul. He’s not anything in terms of politics at that point. You know, a lot of people say it was because of that beat down and that humiliation that Trump finally decided after flirting with it for a long time. Yeah, I’m gonna run. So my question is, Judd, has that been hard to live with?
APATOW: I don’t believe that history is true. That was more. That was the night that they had Bin Laden was killed.
WALLACE: The next night.
APATOW: So what year was that?
WALLACE: 2011.
APATOW: 2011. So it was five years before it happened. And I think that he always was flirting with it. I saw the Roger Stone documentary and I think every four years, he almost got into the game. And I think his calculation to get into the game was not like, oh, four years ago, somebody made a joke. I think he’s certainly, as we’ve seen wanted to be in power.
WALLACE: I think you are underestimating the power of your beatdown of Donald Trump and the scars that it left. Judd, Thank you. This has been a joy, keep making funny stuff.
APATOW: Thank you and I will try to rock these endings a little bit harder. Okay, knowing you’re in your pajamas watching.
Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace drops full episodes each Friday, and CNN airs a version recapping highlights of the episodes Sundays at 7 pm.
Watch above via HBO Max and CNN.
