Do we like Larry David?
Our score: 7 out of 10. His public record is anti-Trump and pro-democracy, with no campaigning against any group, but a few contested jokes and a defence of Woody Allen keep him short of the top.
The latest big thing is Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, a sketch series that sends up key moments in US history. It's produced by Barack Obama's company, Higher Ground, and premiered on HBO on 26 June. David is still working, and still picking fights while he does it.
That premiere is where he told Variety that Trump's White House UFC event was a travesty and that he was “embarrassed to be an American”. The White House replied that critics have Trump Derangement Syndrome. Where you land depends on whether you see a comedian doing his job or a celebrity sneering at his own country.
His feud with Bill Maher is the other running story. In April 2025 David wrote a New York Times satire imagining Maher at a 1939 dinner with Hitler, a swipe at Maher's dinner with Trump. Maher called it “dumb” on Real Time and said Trump isn't Hitler. David was aiming at a comedian over his choice of dinner guest, and it split the room.
On the harm check, his own record is mostly directed at Trump. In 2024 he called Trump “a sociopath” and said Trump couldn't accept losing the 2020 election. In 2020 he said Woody Allen's memoir made it hard to think Allen “did anything wrong”, a position plenty of people won't like. Nothing we found shows him campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet.
His October essay for Air Mail, reported by the New York Times and Boston.com, mocked DSA proposals and ended by suggesting comedians who cause “emotional discomfort” be re-programmed. DSA declined to comment. The sample of reactions in the story was readers on the left calling it unfunny and saying it showed he has lost his touch. It reads like a comic with a grudge, not a campaign against anyone.
Some time ago David was named among the celebrity defendants in the FTX collapse litigation over a crypto promotion. In May 2025 a Florida federal judge dismissed 12 of 14 claims, finding investors hadn't shown the celebrities knew FTX was a fraud. Claims under Florida and Oklahoma securities law survived. It's a brush with the law, not a pattern.