Chris Rock is still taking swings at woke culture, likening cancel-culture enforcers to Salem witch hunters who began with a real target and kept expanding the hunt to keep the business going.
On “The Daily,” Rock, 61, cast the fight over wokeness as a test of whether the culture can lift people up without permanently banishing everyone who falls short.
“The problem with wokeness is we’re in the Old Testament right now,” Rock said. “And the Old Testament has no forgiveness. The Old Testament didn’t work. So they had to write a remix called the New Testament.”
David Marchese put the issue to Rock through the post-George Floyd period he called “woke 1.0,” asking whether that era produced anything worth keeping as Democratic politicians appear less eager to embrace that politics.
The “Grown Ups” star said “it’s great to help those that need help,” but warned the problem comes “when you institutionalize it.”
“The Salem witch hunts. I’m sure the first three witches they caught were actually f- – -ing witches,” Rock remarked.
“But then you open up a witch office and now you’ve got to start lying. Now you’ve gotta f- – – ing make s- – – up because you’ve got overhead. You’ve got to justify the witch hunters f – – -ing pensions and s- – -.”
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In Rock’s view, forgiveness does not require pretending abuse never happened. It means refusing to turn every failure into exile.
He said forgiveness “doesn’t mean condoning abusive behavior” and added, “You can reprimand your friends.”
“If you’re only friends with your friends when they’re good, they’re not your friends,” he noted.
Rock still saw an upside in the upheaval, saying he was “glad that all of this stuff happened” because voices that might have been ignored were heard.
The same push-pull between hope and hard reality showed up as Rock promoted “Misty Green,” his Oct. 9 film as star and director.
On Fallon’s couch, Rock used the movie’s stalled-actress story to talk about Los Angeles as both a dream factory and a place that chews people up.
Rock said he once found Los Angeles “so beautiful,” then described a dream factory where disappointment is never far from the glamour.
“And it’s still beautiful, but there’s homeless people everywhere. Like even on Rodeo Drive sometimes. It’s where people go to find their dreams, but so many dreams die,” Rock said.
He added that “everybody you meet there had grand plans,” but “LA will send you home.”
Rock also punctured the fantasy that one television job sets an entertainer up for life.
“You get a job on television and people somehow think that money’s going to last you the rest of your life,” Rock said. “You had a show 10, 15 years ago. That doesn’t cover it now.”
Even his “Saturday Night Live” residuals, he joked, can still arrive as nine-cent checks.
Rock has also complicated the usual celebrity-vs.-Trump script.
In Variety, Rock distanced himself from Trump personally while giving him credit for one media gripe.
💥 Chris Rock Speaks Out Against the Democrats’ Woke Industrial Complex
“It's great to help those that need help. That is amazing. We need more of that. The problem is when you institutionalize it … Now you gotta start lying. Now you gotta f**king make shit up, cause you got… pic.twitter.com/4sQxyOUHwZ
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) October 3, 2026
“I’m not a fan. But it’s weird when somebody gets one thing right, and the one thing almost clears them of all their other sins. The news is fake. He got that right,” Rock said.
Before former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and members of President Biden’s administration at a 2023 Washington, D.C., comedy event, Rock warned that a Trump arrest would become fuel for Trump instead of punishment.
“Are you guys really going to arrest Trump?” Rock said at the time. “Do you know this is only going to make him more popular. It’s like arresting Tupac. He’s just gonna sell more records. Are you stupid?”
Rock’s Salem riff fits into a broader Hollywood split, where some entertainers keep hammering Trump while also telling Democrats to run from the far left.
“Big Bang Theory” creator Chuck Lorre brought that same tension to the Project Angel Food Angel Awards in Los Angeles, turning an acceptance speech into a profanity-laced set about Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Democratic Party strategy.
At a recent charity event, @CBS's "Sitcom King" @ChuckLorre1 joked about wishing death on @POTUS every morning he wakes up, called @FLOTUS a "Yugoslavian escort" who hates her husband, and proudly mocked @RobertKennedyJr's neurological speech disorder. pic.twitter.com/ck4V6AGTt5
— Dawn Slusher (@BlondeBlogger) September 30, 2026
The charity honored Lorre after his foundation made what it called a “transformational” contribution to its work serving medically tailored meals to people facing critical and life-threatening illnesses.
Lorre told the audience that his “need to cause laughter” kept pulling him away from a warmer speech about compassion and gratitude.
“Sure, I’d love to stand here and talk about my deep yearning for a more compassionate government, one that prioritizes the health and welfare of its citizens,” Lorre said, according to The Daily Beast.
“But the burden of my profession demands that I take this opportunity to say a few words about that bloated orange piece of sh*t in the White House.”
Another portion of the speech, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, had Lorre joking about turning on CNN in the morning to check whether Trump “had a heart attack while straining to take a dump.”
After going after Melania Trump by way of Michelle Obama, Lorre used the Democratic National Committee as his next target and urged it to abandon woke “insanity.”
“I’d like to beg the [Democratic National Committee] to run from the suicidal insanity of the far-left woke culture in the coming election, [and] urge them to seek the common-sense middle ground that emanates from the hardworking, blue-collar heart and soul of America,” Lorre said.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, answered by saying Lorre should seek psychiatric help for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
For his final flourish, Lorre turned the Serenity Prayer into one last Trump attack.
“God, grant me the serenity to no longer give a shit about all the stupid people in this country, the courage to say Donald Trump is a Russian asset who traded teenagers with Jeffrey Epstein, and the wisdom to end on a cheap laugh,” he said. “Thank you very much.”