President Donald Trump tweets so many thoughts about popular culture that it’s easy to forget some of his more credulous social media posts—like one in February that took a scene from the 10th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm at face value.
“TOUGH GUYS FOR TRUMP,” the president tweeted earlier this year, alongside a 27-second clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm that showed Larry David diffusing a potentially violent road rage situation by donning a red “Make America Great Again” hat. The sartorial choice was used as a social deterrent for Larry in the episode, who at one point commented that the cap served as a great “people repellant.”
Speaking now about Trump’s tweet, which was widely mocked at the time, Curb Your Enthusiasm showrunner Jeff Schaffer said it came as a shock. “It’s so funny—when we were shooting it, someone on set was like, ‘When this comes out, he’s definitely going to tweet about this.’ And I said, ‘No, that’s crazy,’” Shaffer said to The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. “And then he did, and he pinned it at the top of his feed, and it just stayed up there.”
Schaffer said he and David discussed perhaps responding to Trump, but figured the irony of his tweet served as proof alone of Trump’s failure to get the joke. “This guy is so stupid, he doesn’t realize we’re making fun of him,” Schaffer added. “Larry and I talked about it, like, is there a response we do? But we decided to just let that orange-haired baby sit in his own messy diaper.”
While David never provided an official response to Trump’s tweet, he has discussed the social media post before. In an interview with the New York Times in April, he expressed disbelief over Trump’s tweet. “What in God’s name was that?” David said. “That was crazy, crazy. I don’t understand it. I still don’t get it.”
He added of Trump, “You know, it’s an amazing thing. The man has not one redeeming quality. You could take some of the worst dictators in history and I’m sure that all of them, you could find one decent quality. Stalin could have had one decent quality, we don’t know!”
David’s disdain for Trump extends to his supporters as well. In February, after the episode aired, David expressed little concern for Trump voters who may have taken offense to the MAGA hat plot. Asked if he was worried about “alienating” fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm who wear Trump paraphernalia, David joked, “Alienate yourselves. Go and alienate, you have my blessing.”
“No,” he added. “I could give a fuck.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— Exposing the Fall of CBS Showrunner Peter Lenkov
— How Sarah Cooper Trumped Donald Trump—Without Saying a Word
— An Exclusive First Look at the TV Drama That Will Enrage Trump
— Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking Only Scratches the Surface of a Big Problem
— How Olivia de Havilland Learned Hattie McDaniel Defeated Her at the 1940 Oscars
— See Ryan Murphy and Sarah Paulson’s Ode to an Iconic Villain: Nurse Ratched
— From the Archive: Inside Olivia de Havilland’s Notorious Lifelong Feud With Sister Joan Fontaine
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.