Jay Leno: Taking jabs at Trump would be more fun if he liked him

Jay Leno had a rule of thumb back when he hosted “The Tonight Show” on NBC: At the end of the night, he went straight home.

“People would say, ‘Hey, come out to this bar.’ ‘No, you guys go on,’ ” he said a few weeks ago, as celebrity sexual harassment charges were flying in Washington and Hollywood. “Look at it: (celebrity chef Mario) Batali got fired yesterday, Garrison Keillor. You’ve got to watch your step, and I think it’s good, really good. … It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? It’s unbelievable.”

And it’s great fodder for standup.

When Leno takes the stage at Casino del Sol’s Event Center on Thursday, Dec. 28, sexual harassment will be a big part of his standup. During a phone call on the day of the Alabama special Senate election — the one featuring accused child predator Republican Roy Moore — Leno tried out a couple of the jokes he plans to tell Thursday. We promised we wouldn’t spoil the punchline so we’re keeping mum. Suffice it to say, they were funny.

“I want to tell that one on stage,” he said of one joke involving female and male exotic dancers. “What I like about that joke is that women smile. They go, ‘Yeah, I never thought of it that way. I guess you’re right’.

“The really hard part is trying to find jokes that get to the core of what’s really funny as opposed to just being against something,” he added.

And that might be the biggest challenge about doing comedy in today’s politically charged climate. The jokes about Donald Trump have become pretty personal.

“You need to do the jokes about it, but ultimately it’s depressing,” Leno, 67, conceded. “I was fortunate. I was doing it when Bush was dumb and Clinton was horny, and that was pretty easy. Now, it’s all just so much sort of anger and hate. It’s not really fun now.”

Don’t misunderstand; Leno believes that Trump is a fair target for the pundits and comedians. But with everyone taking aim, “ultimately you all end up doing the same joke.”

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“It’s hard to parody a parody,” he said. “Look, I don’t like Trump at all. I don’t like him personally, I didn’t like when he was on my show. I don’t care for the man. It has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats; anyone who calls John McCain not a hero, I’m sorry, you lost me on that one.”

And not liking Trump makes it much harder to make fun of him.

“When you have a slight affection, it’s fun, it’s lighthearted. Now, everything is just so nasty now, and that is kinda bad,” Leno explained.

But he will give Trump some props: He’s been great for women.

“I know so many women who were disheartened when Trump got elected because they thought it was going to set them back 50 years,” Leno said. “But Trump, just by his antics, has brought all this sexual harassment to the forefront to the point where you can’t ignore it anymore. This is a real turning point for women in the workplace because people believe you now. When you say something, people don’t assume you’re whiney or you can’t take it or you have to be one of the boys and go along with it. That old playbook doesn’t work anymore.

“This is a good time for women. You’re treated with respect,” he added.

And Leno, ever the optimist, the one guy in the room who will offer up a silver lining to the cloudiest day, describes the times we are living through as “really good times where there is a little bit of trouble.”

“I see people doing good things every day. There are these fires here in California, and I see black people helping white people and Latino people helping. I see everybody going out of their way to help other people who have been affected by these fires,” he said. “People are basically pretty good.”