Dave Chappelle annoyed that Republicans ran with his transphobic material

Of course, jokes can have real-world, political consequences, even if they perhaps play differently in a room than written on a page, as Chappelle argues. “I did resent that the Republican Party ran on transgender jokes. You know, I felt like they were doing a weaponized version of what I was doing. That’s not what I was doing,” he says. “I’ll give you an example, before I learned the phrase, ‘I respectfully decline,’ I was on Capitol Hill, and everybody ran up to take pictures with me from every congressional office. And I just take pictures with whoever asked. I didn’t ask how they vote or what their voting record is. At first, it was CBC people. Then here comes Lauren Boebert and she said, ‘Can I get a picture?’ And I had already taken 40 pictures. I didn’t want to say no in front of everybody, but I didn’t know the phrase ‘I respectfully decline.’ So I just took the picture. And then she posted the picture before I could even get from there to the show and says something to the effect of, ‘Just two people that know that it’s just two genders.’ Just instantly, like, weaponized or politicized. So I got to the arena, and I lit her ass up for doing that. And she should never do that to a person like me.” Chappelle seems to view this as a negative thing that comes with fame, and doesn’t spend time during the interview sharing what he feels about Boebert believing he would be her ally. 

Chappelle also touches on the backlash he and many other comedians faced for performing in Riyadh last year. “The United States government does business with the Saudis. Netflix does business with the Saudis—everyone, the Saudis finance tons of movies,” says Chappelle. “None of these things were an issue until I went there. Why is that? As soon as a Black man can make money off the plantation, they try to tell you that the money is dirty. Okay, I’ll go home and spend the money with actual slaveowners on it. Where is this clean money you’re talking about?” He continues, “I could make a million excuses or reasons to deprive the crowd of that show, but man, when I was standing in front of them, I feel like I did the right thing.”