Charlie Pickering on his ADHD, satire and the 'ludicrous' Trump era

Charlie Pickering on his ADHD, satire and the 'ludicrous' Trump eraBy Anastasia Safioleas for The WeeklyTopic:TV Comedy3m ago3 minutes agoThu 19 Feb 2026 at 1:36amCharlie Pickering, host of The Weekly, was offered his first Tonight show at 25. (Supplied)abc.net.au/news/charlie-pickering-the-weekly-interview/106307588Link copiedShareShare articleWherever Prime Minister Anthony Albanese goes, his beloved dog Toto isn't far behind.The fluffy cavoodle has welcomed foreign dignitaries, sat in on press interviews and even accompanied the prime minister to the ballot box.During a recent segment of Hard Chat for ABC iview's The Weekly he sat dutifully on the PM's knee, a red bandana with the words 'First Dog' around his neck.Loading Instagram content"Albo takes that dog everywhere. It's very smart," host Charlie Pickering says.Unsurprisingly, the satirical news show can't resist the prime ministerial pup."We've got a recurring segment called 'Albo's f***ing dog'," Pickering says."We get all of the press pool footage of Toto the dog because Albo takes him everywhere … and we make a show about it. The life of Toto, basically."But when Pickering eventually saw Anthony Albanese in person, there was no avoiding the elephant in the room."It's nice to make fun of your dog instead of you [but] I'm sure you don't get to see the whole show," he told the PM.Pickering says it can be awkward meeting the people who are the subject of your jokes, but to his surprise, Albanese was a regular viewer."He said 'I watch The Weekly a lot. Often it's the only way I get the news'," Pickering recalls."[But] that is a job where I imagine it's nigh on impossible to actually be across the news all the time.”'Trump has changed a lot of things'Pickering is a rapid-fire talker with a quick wit who has plenty to say about the state of the world.The United States, in particular, has ensured the show is never short of content."If America is ever capable of getting around to going through the paperwork on the Trump presidency, it's guaranteed to be the single greatest project in corruption ever seen in the world," he says.US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania attend the premiere of the documentary film MELANIA. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)Then there is the reported $US75 million that Jeff Bezos used to distribute and market MELANIA, the recently released documentary that follows the first lady in the days before her husband's second presidential inauguration."It was the most that Amazon have ever paid to distribute a movie. For what is objectively the worst movie that will be put out this year," Pickering says."And it's just a transfer of wealth to buy favour with the president."You might think incidents such as these easily lend themselves to political satire, but Pickering disagrees."It has become harder. Trump has changed a lot of things.""Trump is, in a lot of ways, the first major public figure and politician utterly unencumbered by shame and reality — and norms and the law and all of the things that used to hold the damn game together," he says."And part of the satire, the comedy of it all, was seeing someone trying to do what they want to do within the realms of caring what people think of them."Political satire is also about taking something to a ludicrous extreme.Since Trump's re-election, political satire is not what it used to be. (Reuters: Anna Rose Layden)But according to Pickering, in the Trump era we're already starting with the "ludicrous"."So how can you make it more ludicrous? We tried and you can't do it better than the way Trump does it," he says."So you have to actually try and make it make sense again. And that's almost the opposite of comedy."Calm among the chaosIt's been a busy couple of months for Pickering.There was ABC's 2025 wrap The Yearly in December, a live New Year's Eve broadcast from Sydney Harbour with co-host Zan Rowe, and now the 12th season of The Weekly.Thank God It's Friday! — a radio comedy show also hosted by Pickering and featuring a live audience — is broadcast across the ABC radio network each week."I am by no means killing myself with the amount of work that I do," he says, before hastening to add that his team does most of the work."If I could just sit at our big table and work on scripts all day, every day, I'd be perfectly happy."But this work ethic and drive soon gives way to a vulnerability that sits just below the surface.At 12, Pickering watched Clive James on TV and though it looked like the best job in the world. (Supplied)Almost three years ago Pickering was diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis helped him "understand how my brain works" but also came with some "grief"."When things are chaotic my brain is quiet," he says of his ability to find calm among the chaos."So there's something about the quiet focus that occur