Since retiring from an impressive 33 year television career, David Letterman spoke exclusively with Vulture about life after Late Night and how he really feels about Trump. He even has a nickname for ’45’: “Trumpy.”

Check out what he had to say:

On early-Trump interactions:

As someone who interviewed Trump dozens of times, how did your estimation of him change over the years? The first time he came on Late Night, which I think was in ’87, there’s deference on your part to the idea that he might know something about the economy.
He was a mogul, for God’s sake.

By 2012, you’re making fun of his hair apparatus and explaining to him that his ties were being made in China.
I always regarded him as, if you’re going to have New York City, you gotta have a Donald Trump. He was a joke of a wealthy guy. We didn’t take him seriously. He’d sit down, and I would just start making fun of him. He never had any retort. He was big and doughy, and you could beat him up. He seemed to have a good time, and the audience loved it, and that was Donald Trump. Beyond that, I remember a friend in the PR business told me that he knew for a fact — this was three or four presidential campaigns ago — that Donald Trump would never run for president; he was just monkeying around for the publicity. So I assumed that was the story and now it turns out he’s the president. Now, who owns New York?

On how comedy will save us from Trump:

How? Is comedy useful for that?
Comedy’s one of the ways that we can protect ourselves. Alec Baldwin deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Sadly, he’s not going to get it from this president.

Can you explain that a bit more? How does satire protect us from Donald Trump?
The man has such thin skin that if you keep pressure on him — I remember there was a

Actually, it was the other way around. In a 2007 playoff game, a swarm of midges from Lake Erie caused Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain to blow the game with a few wild pitches.

baseball game in Cleveland, and a swarm of flies came on the field and the batters were doing this [mimes swatting at flies] while the pitcher was throwing 100 miles an hour. Well, that’s Alec Baldwin and Saturday Night Live. It’s distracting the batter. Eventually Trump’s going to take a fastball off the sternum and have to leave the game.

There’s this idea that reducing Trump to a punchline could make him seem harmless or helps to normalize him. Is there any validity to that argument?
I guess it’s a possibility. On the other hand, Donald Trump can be Donald Trump, but if he doesn’t help the people that need help, then he’s just a jerk. That press conference that he held berating the news media? I mean, how do you build a dictatorship? First, you undermine the press: “The only truth you’re going to hear is from me.” And he hires the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Steve Bannon, to be his little buddy. Bannon looks like a guy who goes to lunch, gets drunk, and comes back to the office: “Steve, could you have just one drink?” “Fuck you.” How is a white supremacist the chief adviser to our president? Did anybody look that up? I don’t know. How’s this interview going? Do you think you’re talking to a normal person here? Don’t I seem like I’m full of something?

On Pence:

Do you feel any better about your fellow Indianan Mike Pence?
He only got elected because he looks like the chair-throwing, longtime Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball coach. Bobby Knight. Jeez, Pence scared the hell out of me. There was a therapy …

Conversion therapy. There’s debate about whether or not 

In 2000, Pence’s congressional campaign website stated that resources should be directed toward institutions that “provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” In 2016, Pence’s spokesman told the Times that the statement was not referring to the “pray the gay away” psychotherapy known as “conversion therapy.”

Pence actually supported it.
Yes, conversion therapy. That’s when I just thought, Oh God, really, Indiana? I don’t care if you’re a fundamentalist Christian — even they have gay relatives. They can’t be saying homosexuality is a sin. It’s horseshit. Then

In February, the Trump administration reversed the Obama administration’s directive that directed schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

this transgender issue that just happened, I just think, Are you kidding me? Look, you’re a human, I’m a human. We’re breathing the same air. We have the same problems. We’re trying to get through our day. Who the fuck are you to throw a log in the road of somebody who has a different set of difficulties in life?

On calling 45 “Trumpy”:

You mentioned Fallon and viral videos. Whether it’s Jimmy Kimmel having celebrities read mean tweets about themselves or James Corden and carpool karaoke, part of the job now of a late-night host is to try to generate bits that’ll get shared online. When you used to do bits, even the “Top Ten” list, it always seemed like you were suffering through them. How do you feel about late-night shows becoming vehicles for social media?
I knew it was happening, and I recognized that it was a good idea, but I didn’t know how to do it. When people around me would come up with ideas, I felt like, This is exploitation beyond the pale. We’re just going to produce some little precious moment here and put it up on the internet? But nobody wants to sit through an eight-minute interview with fill-in-the-blank. So these things are useful. But the idea of Twitter: Trumpy — my son, Harry, and I call him “Trumpy” — has really got something with it. Rather than a laughable expression of ego run amok, it could be a useful tool. If we get a president sometime soon who does not have a mental disorder, Twitter will be useful. So — I’m lonely, I can’t stop talking.

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