While discussing Donald Trump’s presidential run, former Tonight Show host Jay Leno said the Republican nominee’s problems stem from the fact that no one has ever “beaten the crap out of him.”
The 66-year-old former Tonight Show host told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview that the problem with the Republican presidential nominee is he doesn’t know how to treat people with kindness, which could be fixed if he simply experienced getting beaten up.
“I think this is the problem with Donald Trump,” Leno said. “I don’t think anybody has just ever beaten the crap out of him, so he has this attitude of ‘whatever.’ When you have the crap beat out of you, you learn how to negotiate, you learn how to deal with people.”
The former late night host continued to talk about his “attitude about life,” saying, “You learn that kindness is the greatest virtue you can have. I know people that say ‘Shut the f—ing door’ and I know people who say ‘Is it cold in here?’ If you say ‘Is it cold in here?’ someone will shut the door for you, and you haven’t annoyed anybody or pissed anybody off.”
The Jay Leno’s Garage host has been relatively silent in recent months, but he did criticize the tone of Trump’s campaign earlier this summer.
In June, Leno said he would not interview Trump if given the chance and took thinly-veiled digs at Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
“There is an ugliness to this campaign that I don’t find attractive at all, and I really don’t want to joke about somebody saying, ‘All Muslims should be kicked out of the country or ‘because a guy is Mexican, he can’t be a judge,’” Leno said. “It is tricky to find the joke there.”
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