Comedian and bestselling author talks process, politics, and the state of media
April 2025 – Drew University hosted comedian and New York Times bestselling author Andy Borowitz to the Drew Forum to close out the 2024-25 season, which also featured Bob Costas and Al Franken.
Borowitz Drew Forum
The event, held at the Mayo Performing Arts Center, was generously supported by the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.
After welcoming what he promised was the biggest crowd in Morristown history in a tongue-in-cheek wink at the White House, Borowitz touched on the current political climate, his writing and news intake processes, and the state of media in a discussion moderated by Emmy Award-winning journalist Paula Zahn.
Here’s a look at the four funniest, most insightful quick hits:
On the internet
“The general feeling about the internet was that it was going to be this incredible supplier of education, the information superhighway. We were all going to be so much better informed because of the internet. And of course now on the internet if you really want to find any fact. All you have to do is type in something like, ‘Is it a good idea to have your brain eaten by a worm?’ And AI will tell you that some experts say it’s a good idea to have your brain eaten by a worm. So, it’s the exact opposite. It’s now a stupidity distribution system that can supply whatever idiocy we want to believe and you can choose your own facts.”
On his theory of the ridicule-acceptance-celebration phases of dumb politicians
“Ridicule: dumb politicians pretending to be smart. Acceptance: dumb politicians thought it was okay to be dumb. Now we’re in this weird, twisted celebration phase where smart politicians are pretending to be dumb. So you have these Ivy League educated people like Josh Hawley and Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz—pardon the expression—who went to Harvard and Yale and Princeton and are all pretending to be stupid because they think that that will win them votes. Why does it have to be a binary choice? Why can’t you have someone who’s good on TV and also knows stuff like Barack Obama, someone who was good on TV and did not hide the fact that he was educated. And that, of course, annoyed a lot of people.”
On the role character plays in politics
“I think the two things that are most important in character, not just for a president but any elected official, would be humility and curiosity. And they’re related, because if you are willing to admit that you don’t know things, that will go hand in hand with curiosity, you’ll want to learn more things…You have to first have intellectual humility to have the ability to say ‘I don’t know.’ It’s very liberating to say ‘I don’t know.’ But instead, now we have a situation where people are very arrogant and also very incurious. I think that’s one of the many causes of our current problems. And it’s not just our politicians, it’s all of us.”
On writing fake headlines in this news era
“I’ve always loved the idea of writing deadpan fake news. I’m not trying to hoax people. I’m not trying to trick people. But the problem is we’re living in such an absurd era that I can write these completely fanciful stories and people will believe them. It’s been especially true in the Trump era because I can think of the most insane thing that Trump might do and then 10 minutes later he’ll do it, and it’s like my news isn’t fake, it’s just early…”
