Galifianakis Nearly Canceled 2016 Clinton Interview Over Email Ban Demand

Comedian Zach Galifianakis said he almost canceled his 2016 interview with then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after her team demanded he avoid her email controversy.

Galifianakis discussed the incident on Conan O'Brien's podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. He and O'Brien agreed that comedy must take priority in interviews with politicians, even sitting presidents. Galifianakis criticized some podcasters for booking the president just to flatter him. He said it was their duty to make guests uncomfortable.

"I’m more interested in the comedy first, and whatever their motive is, fine," Galifianakis said. "But the comedy has to come first. I remember when I interviewed Hillary Clinton and I could tell she didn't want to be there. And I totally get that. I get it."

"But before we had set that whole thing up, they wrote back, 'Well, you can't bring up those emails,'" he said. "And I go, 'Well, we don't have to do the interview … That's fine. We won't do it.'"

Clinton's team backed down and agreed to proceed without the restriction, Galifianakis said. "When you tell powerful people, no, it's crazy," he added. "They were like, 'OK, we'll do it.' Well, you can ask, because it's not that important to me to do it the way they want to do it. You have to, if you're going to come in a comedy, you got to, the way we want to do it."

Clinton's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Galifianakis interviewed Clinton on his web series Between Two Ferns in September 2016. He also hosted former President Barack Obama on the show.

After the Clinton appearance, Galifianakis said he would not invite Donald Trump, Clinton's opponent. "I wouldn't have somebody on that's so mentally challenged," he said at the time. "I feel like I'd be taking advantage of him. And you can print that."

O'Brien and Galifianakis said Trump would benefit from becoming the butt of jokes. "And our current president would do well to understand that if he let himself be the butt of the joke," O'Brien said. Galifianakis replied, "It's humanizing."

"You wouldn't do it with him. It wouldn’t work," Galifianakis said of Trump.

Trump has criticized late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel during his second term. Galifianakis joked that first lady Melania Trump resembled an "expectant widow" in a parody of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, days before a shooting there. Trump and Melania called for Kimmel's firing.