Conan O’Brien waded into some potentially political waters with his new travel special, “Conan Without Borders: Greenland.” But as he explained in an audience Q&A session, he’s not actually looking to start a beef with Donald Trump.
The special is inspired by the recent diplomatic weirdness after news that Trump wants the U.S. to buy Greenland from Denmark, an idea Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called “absurd,” The joke behind the special is that O’Brien thinks buying Denmark is a good idea, so he traveled there to scope it out.
However, asked by an audience member if he hopes for some kind of reaction from Trump on Twitter, O’Brien said, “I kinda don’t.”
O’Brien explained that he and his staff have wanted to do another travel show, that Greenland had long been a possible destination, and the Trump connection gave them a good excuse. “It’s not that I don’t have strong political feelings, ’cause I do. But I don’t really want to get down into the muck of the political yelling back-and-forth.”
O’Brien emphasized that he has no problem with his “really good friends” on other talk shows who do talk about Trump directly, but added, “that’s not my passion, that’s not my skill set.”
O’Brien joked he also doesn’t want to “distract” Trump, adding, “every day he wakes up like an angry old circus bear that’s been jabbed repeatedly and he’s like grrrrrrr.”
“I want to make comedy that’s gonna be funny to people maybe 15 years from now, long after this era is forgotten,” he concluded.
Watch the whole clip above.