Donald Trump awkwardly used a Fox News interview Friday morning to trash jokes he said were written for him by people from Fox, but the network has since denied that anyone from its team wrote jokes for the former president.
The GOP nominee appeared on Fox & Friends the day after he insulted his political opponents and made light of his unprecedented legal troubles in a speech at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York. Part of his remarks at the Catholic charity event were aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris, who sent in a recorded message featuring Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon in lieu of attending the dinner in person.
After complaining about not being allowed to use a teleprompter for the event, Trump praised comedian Jim Gaffigan’s performance on the night, saying: “I thought he was good.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“We have seen historically a lot of Democrats, they turn to the guys at Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show, they write all their material,” Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy said to Trump. “Your material was real funny—who wrote it?” Doocy asked, before quickly adding: “Who helped you with it?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot of people helping,” Trump answered. “A lot of people. A couple of people from Fox, actually. I shouldn’t say that. But they wrote some jokes and, for the most part, I didn’t like any of them.”
Co-host Brian Kilmeade, who had attended the Al Smith Dinner, quickly replied to Trump’s quip by introducing a supercut the show had prepared of the Republican nominee delivering the gags he’d just trashed.
“Shall we see some highlights of it?” Kilmeade asked. “You did great.”
Hours later, however, a spokesperson for Fox denied that any “employee or freelancer” wrote jokes for Trump to deliver at the dinner, according to an X post from CNN reporter Hadas Gold.
