Conan O'Brien Teases Less Donald Trump Jokes at 2026 Oscars: 'He's Bad for Comedy'

Conan O’Brien is signaling a tonal shift ahead of Hollywood’s biggest night.

The veteran comedian, who will host the 98th Academy Awards on March 15, has suggested viewers shouldn’t expect a steady stream of jokes about President Donald Trump this time around — a notable change after a year filled with pointed political punchlines.

“I think he’s bad for comedy,” O’Brien said of Trump during a recent appearance on "The New Yorker Radio Hour" podcast. “There are comedians who, when they talk about Trump, quickly get very angry. And I’ve said this before, but I think it’s possible to surrender your best weapon. Your best weapon is to be funny.”

O’Brien’s comments mark a contrast from his appearance at the 2025 Mark Twain Prize ceremony at the Kennedy Center, where he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, just weeks after Trump named himself Kennedy Center chairman and shook up the board.Trump jokes dominated the night, with fellow comedians including John Mulaney, Sarah Silverman and Stephen Colbert taking aim at the president throughout the ceremony.

On stage, O’Brien invoked Mark Twain’s words about patriotism and government accountability.

“Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word. He loved America, but knew it was deeply flawed,” he said. “Twain wrote, ’Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it.’”

Now, O’Brien appears to be recalibrating.

Speaking at the Oxford Union earlier this year, he criticized comedians who center their material on anger rather than humor. “You always need to be funny,” O’Brien said. “You just have to find a way to channel that anger, because good art will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox.”

He added that some comics who repeatedly chant “F Trump” risk being “co-opted” by their own anger.

O’Brien has also argued that Trump’s unpredictability makes satire uniquely challenging. “We don’t have a straight line right now,” he said at Oxford, describing today’s political climate as “a very bendy, rubbery line” and “a fire hose that’s whipping around.”

In his New Yorker interview, he expanded on that idea. “There’s a lot that’s so bombastic and so outrageous and so unprecedented,” he said, questioning how comedians can top real-life headlines.

At last year’s Oscars, O’Brien waited until the end of the telecast to slip in a jab referencing Best Picture winner Anora and Russia. Whether he’ll deploy similar material this year remains to be seen — but he’s tempering expectations.

“When there’s a really good joke about the president or the Administration, if there’s a joke about the right or the left and it’s a good one, I’m elated,” he told "The New Yorker Radio Hour" podcast. “I just think that in the current climate, things have gotten so stretched out… that it’s hard to find purchase.”

One thing he does hope for? “You know what I’d really like? A streaker to slap me.”

Politics aside, it sounds like O’Brien would rather chase absurdity than anger, and let the laughs land where they may.