Comedian John Cleese appeared to realize what he had done when he tweeted late in the day on Tuesday a list of five ways that “Hitler was preferable to Trump,” including “He fought for his country” and “He never played golf.” He only came up with two ways Trump was better than Hitler: “1. He doesn’t practice genocide 2. He has nicer hair.”
“I would like to apologise for my last tweet,” he added four minutes later. “It was a very bad joke, especially on Boxing Day.”
But as the inevitable backlash began to pour in, the Monty Python co-founder, who has never been shy about his disgust with the former president, continued to double down and defend his right to make “very bad jokes,” even if some people find them offensive.
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In response to one person who informed him the original tweet was “not funny” and “not true, either,” Cleese replied, “Some people think it was funny, AND not true.”
When someone else told him that his “best comedy days” were obviously behind him, he wrote, “At the age of 84 I should hope so.”
“So you prefer Hitler to Trump?” another incensed user asked, to which Cleese said, “I should have thought that was obvious to any idiot... If not to anyone else...”
Cleese’s thoughts on the matter were best summed up in a response to a fan who was simply “disappointed” with the joke: “Some people thought it was very funny / But they have a sense of context / Easily solved. Just don’t follow me any more.”
For more, listen to John Cleese on The Last Laugh podcast.
