Donald Trump doesn’t laugh.
That’s according to former FBI Director James Comey, who told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he developed a bit of an obsession with Trump’s lack of mirth after the President fired him last May.
Here’s the exchange between Comey and Stephanopoulos on the lack of laughter:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You notice something else – during that dinner. You say the President didn’t laugh.
COMEY: Yeah, not at all. And I was struck by it. So struck by it, it stayed with me, that I’ve never seen him laugh. Not in public, not in private. And at a dinner with someone – I mean, I’m not a comedian but I occasionally say something that’s funny that people chuckle with each other.
But I never saw anything that resembled a laugh. And I could over-interpret that, I could be – also, we’re missing something that – that maybe he’s – he’s breaking up in stitches with other people other than the FBI director, but I also tried – after I got fired, I thought – that stayed with me. And so I went and tried to find examples of videos where he’s laughing and I could only find that really wasn’t a genuine laugh.
This is not, at the end of the day (or even at the beginning of the day) a hugely important debate, especially when compared to other allegations Comey made in the five-hour sitdown with Stephanopoulos – including that Trump is morally unfit to be president, that he acts like a mafia boss and that it’s not impossible that he had an encounter with prostitutes in Moscow in 2013.
But, it is interesting. After all, Trump spends a decent chunk of time ridiculing the “fake news” media for its collective lack of a sense of humor. To hear Trump tell it, the humorless media doesn’t understand that he is joking about all sorts of things and, as a result, treats his jokes like actual policy statements – proof positive they are total rubes.
Among the misunderstood “jokes” that Trump has told:
- That Democrats were “treasonous” for not standing to applaud during his State of the Union speech
- That he might consider getting rid of term limits on the presidency
- That his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, would be a terrific Supreme Court justice
- That former President Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS
For someone who “jokes” a lot – and quite clearly, based on the 2016 campaign and his rallies as president, likes to make people laugh – Trump isn’t someone who laughs much himself.
As CNN’s Greg Krieg wrote in October 2016:
He certainly jokes. He grins, winks, puckers and preens. Trump works to get his crowds to laugh, even when he’s promising to make “them” stop laughing at us.
But how about a laugh from him – from the belly, mouth agape – a real booming, sustained cackle?
For answers, I turned to the Internet. I typed in “Donald Trump laughing” and this YouTube clip came up immediately.
That’s definitely a laugh. A spontaneous burst of mirth. The circumstances? A loud, shrieking noise interrupts a Trump speech in New Hampshire in January 2016. He asks if it was a dog. Someone in the crowd shouts “Hillary!” Trump says “it’s Hillary” while laughing.
So, a joke about Hillary Clinton as a dog is the one documented time on the web where Trump laughs. Which, I guess, proves Comey wrong. But doesn’t make Trump look good – or particularly jocular.