Conan O’Brien takes on Trump with brutal Epstein dig in Oscars monologue
Conan O’Brien delivered a winning punchline about President Donald Trump and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein during his monologue at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
The Oscar host, who has largely stayed away from politics despite being a registered Democrat, seized on the joke by noting that the 98th Academy Awards marked the first time since 2012 that a British star has not been nominated in either the Best Actor or Best Actress categories.
“The British spokesperson said, ‘Yeah? Well, at least we arrested our pedophiles.’ So we’ve got that going for us,” the legend of the night joked, earning more than 10 seconds of applause from the Oscars crowd.
The presenter’s prank comes less than a month after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was arrested in the UK on suspicion of misconduct in public office as he faced growing pressure over his links to late convicted sex offender Epstein.
Trump socialized and appeared in several photographs with Epstein over the years. He has denied any ties to the financier and has not been implicated in Epstein’s crimes.
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O’Brien, who mocked Trump without saying his name during last year’s show, argued that the president has been “bad at comedy” leading up to Sunday, telling The New Yorker’s Radio Hour that comedians who mention Trump get “very angry” doing so and give up their “best weapon” in the process: being funny.
But that didn’t stop him from joking about Trump and his administration on Sunday.
After a commercial break, O’Brien criticized the rebranding of the Kennedy Center since the president returned to office.
“Welcome back, we come to you live from the ‘He’s Got a Small Penis’ Theater,” he joked. “Let’s see how he puts his name in front of that.”
O’Brien’s probe comes a little more than a month after Trump went crazy on social media over several jokes by former “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah during his final gig as the Grammy Awards emcee.