Comedian W. Kamau Bell surfs the left-right divide with ‘Who's With Me?’

W. Kamau Bell refers to himself as a standup comedian, a director, a producer, and a dad. He hosted the Emmy award-winning CNN series, “United Shades of America,” won a Peabody Award for his Showtime docuseries, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” and co-authored the New York Times bestseller, “Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book.”

Perhaps most impressively though, he just won "Celebrity Jeopardy!" He's touring the country with a new standup show and performing Friday at Seattle’s Neptune Theatre. He talked to KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about what's making him laugh these days and what's giving him pause.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: I'm going to get to "Celebrity Jeopardy!" but I have to ask you first about the new show. It's called, “Who's With Me?” Who is it you're trying to gather with you, and what for?

W. Kamau Bell: There’s a lot of talk about, we're in the most divided time. I feel like my assignment is to be clear about who I am, what I believe, and then ask, "Are you with me, or are you not with me? If you're with me, yay! If you're not with me, fine, then go be over there." I like to think this is like the more inclusive version of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

A lot of people got to know you with the CNN series, “The United Shades of America.” You were diving into issues that divide folks, and now with the second Trump administration, I think it's fair to say we're even more polarized. As a comedian, is that a bad situation for you or a good one?

Let me be clear, I'm Team World Peace all day long. So, I'm not necessarily so careerist that I'm like, yay! But the type of comedian I am, there's no shortage of things to talk about. So, in that sense, there's a lot of grist for the mill. But I wish the mill didn't have so much grist.

I hear a lot from people, friends, people I just meet, they can't take the news. It's just too much, the volume, the negativity of it, just the sheer pace of it. But people are going to pay money tonight. They're going to go to the Neptune and they're going to hear your take on it. So, what's happening there? What am I doing wrong, Kamau?

First of all, I think it's a little bit of a meet-up of people in town who sort of have a similar political outlook on the world. So, they can meet at the Kamau show, and then afterwards, organize. But then I think they also know that I will find the laughs, and I'm not going to find the laughs at the expense of the subject. Like, we can talk about the thing, we can take it very seriously, but I'm also going to find some joy in here. And I think people often, when they walk out, they feel like, oh, I needed that. I hear that a lot, like, there's so much tension, and so many people aren't good at finding the laughs or feel like they can't laugh. I'm sort of there to help you go, there's laughter in here, and you can still be respectful about the issues.

I'm curious about the conversations you may have with folks who are more conservative-leaning, and who were not happy with where the country was headed under President Biden.

I think it's funny. My audience is automatically more conservative than people realize, because I was on CNN for seven years, and despite what people think, CNN is not a left-leaning political network. It's a maybe middle of the road, maybe center-right network. I hear people all the time say, “I don't agree with everything you say, but I've learned a lot. I really appreciate the way you talk about this stuff.” I don't have any issue talking to those people on an individual, one-to-one basis. It's when they get into their team sport bag of like, the president is my avatar. That's when it becomes, like, I can't really talk to you right now.

Are there any writers, commentators of a conservative bent that you enjoy, that you are interested in?

I mean, I engage with a lot of different things. I think we are caught up in this left-right paradigm, which actually puts too much power in the hands of the “right.” I find there's way more interesting points of disagreement on the left that I want to engage with than somebody who's like, “but I'm for mass deportations.” Anybody who is still defining themselves as being a member of the right at this point in history, I feel like is lost in the sauce of the right. So, to me, there are lots of people who have realized, I'm not a Democrat, but I'm not what that is. And I can talk to those people.

Tara Setmayer is a great example of that. She's a Black woman who's lifelong Republican, but is like, “I'm not with this.” I think that we're too interested in defining left and right when, really, that thing doesn't exist. Because, by my reckoning in the Bay Area, Joe Biden is on the right, based on who I hang out with in Berkeley, you know? So, I think we get too caught up in trying to bridge divides that are actually not worth our time, instead of, like, why don't we try to strengthen the divides that we’re on the same side as generally?

Let's get to "Celebrity Jeopardy!" Just between you and me, who was the dumbest celebrity you were up against?

I don't think everybody had the time or interest, because everybody's got a job, to practice the way that some people did. So, Margaret Cho apparently watched 30 years of "Jeopardy" episodes. And I'd never seen Margaret Cho that serious in her life. My first episode, I got to hang out with Max Greenfield. He's not dumb at all. He also just needed to get home to his kids. It was a Sunday morning, you know? Yay, I want to raise money for my charity. Also, I got things to do later. So, it's not about dumb. A regular person going on regular "Jeopardy" is like, "I need to win." A celebrity going on a Celebrity Jeopardy, you're told, "Have a good time."

You mentioned the prize money. You won $1 million, the whole thing. Where is it going?

It's going to DonorsChoose, which is an organization I'm on the board of directors for, which helps teachers raise money for classroom projects. It could be books, hygiene products, snacks, a trip, musical instruments. It’s just ways to sort of close that gap, since our government is giving up on educating us. Charles Best, who started it, said he wanted it to be for extra projects, like products that are above and beyond, like if a school wants to do something special, not if the school wants to make sure the kids aren't hungry.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.