Credit: Courtesy Photo / Paula Poundstone
Comedian Paula Poundstone isn’t the least bit surprised at how quickly the news cycle changes — especially with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
She laughs when we tell her we rewatched her appearance as a panelist on an October 2025 episode of CNN’s Have I Got News for You and were struck by how much has happened in just six months.
On the episode, Poundstone joked about topics including the demolition of the White House’s East Wing and New York Attorney General Letitia James being indicted for bank fraud following calls by Trump for an investigation.
“It’s an overused phrase, but the news is like a firehose every day,” Poundstone, 66, told the Current. “I think to some degree, when [the Trump administration] isn’t making a lot of news, that’s surprising.”
Along with keeping up with the news as much as possible, Poundstone, who identifies as asexual and is a popular comedian in the LGBTQ+ community, keeps busy by hosting her weekly podcast Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone. She’s also aregular panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me.
Poundstone will make a tour stop at San Antonio’s Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, May 30, for a stand-up comedy show.
During our interview, Poundstone talked about becoming the first woman comedian to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner more than 30 years ago, Trump’s plan to perform the comedy portion of this year’s dinner himself before it was canceled and whether comedy and free speech will survive the next two and a half years.
Is turning on the news the first thing you do in the morning?
It’s not the first thing I do, but I do pay a lot of attention to it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It would be a better thing if good things were happening, but I believe we’re going to turn it around. It’ll take everybody putting an oar in the water.
In 1992, you became the first woman comic to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Looking back, does that moment feel historic to you, or did it feel like just another gig?
It was exciting at the time for all sorts of reasons. It was a world I was not all that familiar with, and I met some nice people. I like Washington, D.C. I mean, I think the event itself has lots of problems, but it was certainly a different time. I think Trump dodged a bullet by not being able to go on [at the last Correspondents’ Dinner in April]. My guess is that it would have been one more big news item about Trump saying horrible things. The guy has no judgment. A microphone and no judgment — not necessarily a good combination.
It would have been the first Correspondents’ Dinner he attended as president, but like last year, there was no comedian scheduled to perform. He planned to do the roasting himself.
Yeah, I think somewhere along the way, somebody either said to him, or he said to himself, that he could [do the roast himself]. Trump thinks he’s good at everything. He had the astronauts from the [Artemis II lunar mission] — one of the most remarkable scientific endeavors ever — in the Oval Office, and he said he could have been an astronaut. He’s an idiot. He talks to someone for two seconds and believes he could do their job.
“Nobody knows comedy better than me” is something I’m sure he would have said had he took the stage that night.
Oh, gosh, yeah. Well, he thinks he’s really funny. He’s so awful. I think if he wasn’t evil, he’d be kind of funny. The problem is, he’s evil. For all I know, Hitler might have had a wonderful sense of humor. But I don’t know, and I don’t care.
Do evil people need sleep? These days, Trump seems to always have his eyes closed during meetings. I’ve heard his supporters say that he’s reading something on his desk or concentrating.
Or he’s blinking! For heaven’s sake! That’s ridiculous! Did you see the post from the White House the other day? (Note: The official White House Rapid Response account wrote on X, “He was blinking, you absolute moron,” in response to a photo a national security correspondent posted of Trump sleeping during a meeting in the Oval Office.) That [response] was wrong on every level. [Trump] falls asleep. He’s an old man. Listen, I fall asleep too. I’m tired. If the shit he did hit him the way it hits us, he’d fall asleep twice as much. It’s exhausting being a citizen under him.
Do you know any other 80-year-olds who stay up until 3 a.m. posting on social media?
No. He considers it some badge of honor that he keeps these very late-night hours. He slips it in here and there. He’ll be telling a story about how he gets these Congress people on the phone at 3 a.m. He doesn’t just say, “I spoke with him on the phone.” He says, “I called up Mike Johnson at 3 a.m.” So, it’s clearly something he’s proud of. The thing is that sleep hygiene is an important part of good mental health. When you have wacky hours — and I’m speaking from experience here — it does mess you up a little bit. So, I’m sure there are other factors that go into his insanity, but that’s one of them.
Over the years, you’ve worked on TV, radio, panel shows, podcasts, voice acting and other platforms. What format expresses the real Paula Poundstone best?
When you boil down to my essence, I’m a stand-up comic. But I was reflecting on podcasting the other day, and one of the things I realized is on a podcast, obviously, there’s no live audience in front of us. There’s something about the fact that I’m not in front of an audience that has allowed me to be broader, a little bit more experimental. I do voices and silly characters and stuff on my podcast. It’s not the bulk of what I do, but I do it. I would never have the nerve to do that in front of an audience. I would say that I have enjoyed the opportunity to explore different sides of me through podcasting that I would not likely have on stage.
We’ve seen the Trump administration’s approach to free speech since his return to office. Do you think comedy will survive the next two and a half years?
I think it will. I mean, it’s already been stymied to some degree by him going after the networks and the newspapers and the White House Correspondents’ [Association]. [The WHCA] thinks it’s about access, so that causes them to cave or to keep trying to suck up to him, which modifies their journalism. I would say that that has already happened.But you know, I don’t think he’s going to make it for a full-term. I think either his health will take him out or the Republican Congress will finally grow a spine.
Do you think Trump ever really wanted to be president?
No. I think somewhere in the back of his mind he’s like, “I’ll do this awful thing,” and maybe they’ll get rid of me. But they never do. It’s like, “Jesus, what do I have to do to get out of this?” He’s like, “OK, I have done every heinous thing I can think of, and they still haven’t gotten rid of me! Hey, I’ll knock down the whole East Wing without asking anybody. I’ll attack another country without asking anybody.” That should do it — and it doesn’t! By the way, I think there’s already been enough revealed in the Epstein Files that he’s damned.
You’ve built a career on observational humor, but nowadays, it seems like people are experiencing life through their cell phones and other devices. Do you think modern life is becoming harder to observe truthfully because you never know if what you’re watching is real anymore?
Oh, my gosh, yeah. I mean, I have fallen for a few fake AI posts before. It’s the worst time for us to have that. I don’t think it would be good for any society, but we have a whole party that lies their ass off every day. Now, there’s this additional tool for lying. In the earlier days of the internet, people would say, “If you don’t have a picture, it didn’t happen.” Now, even having a picture doesn’t mean it happened. It’s frustrating. Every generation has some sort of challenge, but I certainly don’t envy young people. I feel like my generation was the luckiest one of all, and now we’re bottoming out.
$63-$83.50, 7 p.m. Saturday, May 30, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org.