Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw joined “Fox & Friends” hosts on Friday morning to react to “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson’s latest Netflix special in which he revisited criticism received for his joke about Crenshaw, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who now wears an eye patch due to injuries sustained in an IED blast.
Crenshaw offered a mixed response, calling it “a little sad” that he continues to be the subject of Davidson’s comedic routines, but that “if we took everything that comedians said on a Netflix special seriously, man our country would be in a world of hurt.”
Davidson initially sparked controversy in a 2018 SNL episode in which he joked about Crenshaw’s eyepatch.
“This guy is kind of cool, Dan Crenshaw. You may be surprised to hear he’s a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie,” Davidson said at the time. “I’m sorry, I know he lost his eye in war or whatever…”
The joke drew criticism from viewers who saw it as minimizing Crenshaw’s injuries while serving his country. Crenshaw appeared on SNL the following week and he and Davidson appeared to make amends and Crenshaw had the chance to make a few jokes at Davidson’s expense in return.
In his latest Netflix special, Davidson suggested he didn’t think he did anything wrong by his original jokes about Crenshaw and said “I kind of got forced to apologize ’cause like people were threatening to shoot me in the face.”
In his Fox appearance, Crenshaw said he wants to remember Davidson by the apology he shared in 2018.
“We had a really good moment at that time in 2018. America liked it. The left and the right liked it. So, we don’t really want to ruin that,” Crenshaw said.
Crenshaw recalled the opportunity he had to meet Davidson in person. Davidson’s father was a firefighter who died on 9/11 and Crenshaw said the two shared a moment of appreciation for Davidson’s father.
“The Pete Davidson I remember, he went out to buy some cigarettes while we were rehearsing and he came back because he had found this lighter that said ‘Never Forget’ on it and he gave that to me as a gesture,” Crenshaw told the Fox hosts. “He said this was kind of cool that this happened to come up while he was buying cigarettes. And I think he meant well at the time and can never tell with comedians and who knows how much he had to drink beforehand. I don’t know. We don’t have to — we don’t have to take it too seriously.”
Crenshaw went on to say, “Now, to be fair, if we took everything that comedians said on a Netflix special seriously, man our country would be in a world of hurt. Again, I’d like to remember the guy that I saw in person and hung out with that night.”
