Julia Louis-Dreyfus Warns Donald Trump’s Late-Night Feuds Are Bigger Than Comedy

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is not treating the fight over late-night comedy as another celebrity-versus-Trump feud.

On the latest episode of her “Wiser Than Me” podcast, the 11-time Emmy winner opened with a warning about what happens “when our government sees artists as the enemy,” connecting President Donald Trump’s attacks on late-night hosts to a broader climate of disputed facts, propaganda and pressure on dissenting voices.

“I’m not sure how we got here, but all of a sudden, we live in a world where facts are disputed,” Louis-Dreyfus said. Facts are “drowned in noise, and then they’re weaponized,” she continued, adding, “It’s like there’s this attack on our ability to trust what we perceive, and then confusion and a kind of numbed, stupification are the result.”

Louis-Dreyfus, whose own career includes Seinfeld and the political satire Veep, said comedy should be understood as part of art’s role in reflecting society back at itself.

“I’ve done a lot of comedy in my career, and people don’t immediately think of comedy as part of the artist holding up the mirror to society thing. But of course, that’s exactly what comedy does, and that’s why it’s the comedians who go down first, the Stephen Colberts and Jimmy Kimmels.”

Her comments follow a bruising stretch for late-night TV. The Late Show was canceled after Stephen Colbert criticized CBS parent company Paramount Global for settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump while seeking FCC approval for an $8 billion merger. Trump celebrated the cancellation.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! was temporarily pulled last year amid conservative backlash over the host’s comments about Republicans’ response to the killing of commentator Charlie Kirk. Trump celebrated that move, too, while FCC chair Brendan Carr later ordered early license reviews of Disney’s eight owned-and-operated ABC stations.

“When our government sees artists as the enemy … that’s the start of something truly terrifying,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “It’s a very small step from here to punishing dissent itself.”

“This isn’t to say all art is magically virtuous or anything,“ Louis-Dreyfus said. ”The idea here is a basic right to freedom of expression.”

She also pointed to Trump’s executive order cracking down on “partisan ideology” in public spaces, which led to the removal of numerous historical monuments.

“History can be rewritten and heroes removed, but it’s harder to erase how people react to a novel or a painting or a movie,” she explained. “When there’s so much propaganda and chaos, the artist’s job gets more essential and, frankly, more dangerous.”