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As he describes the show, Trudeau squirms at the unaccustomed pressure of "being naked, airing my views without the filter of my art." He adds, "It ill suits my self-interest as an asker of impertinent questions to pose as someone who has answers for them." Once he gets started, however, his conversation is if anything blunter than his strip or Rap Master lyrics. He refers to the First Lady's antidrug crusade, which the show japes, as the "cynical reinvention of Nancy Reagan." He describes the Reagan White House as an "Administration of radical extremists." Of Reagan, he says, "That constant smile is a real drug. We want to believe it, and so we all do." Trudeau stresses that he is an ardent patriot. "It's just that the nature of my patriotism arises from hope rather than pride. I am one of the few people around who believe in the perfectibility of man." Reluctantly he labels himself a liberal and concedes, "I don't think I have ever voted for a Republican, although I don't rule it out."
A lifelong fan of the theater, Trudeau says he will have to defer further stage forays because of his family commitments. He is the father of three small children and shares the duties of child care and cooking with his wife Jane Pauley, co-host of NBC's Today show. To devote more time to them, he has given up working on weekends. Says he: "That dried up my pool of discretionary time. But I know I will do another show."
He works on Doonesbury every weekday from late morning to dusk in a studio apartment near his home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The office is sparely decorated with two couches, a drawing board and chair, Alice in Wonderland sketches by Cartoonist Ralph Steadman and a few posters, including one celebrating Black Leader Malcolm X. He employs neither a secretary nor a researcher and finds subjects to poke fun at by voracious reading, and clipping, of periodicals: "All the main newspapers and weeklies, plus everything from Soldier of Fortune to conservation magazines. I keep active files on 200 to 300 topics that interest me. When there get to be more than that, I start throwing some out."
In the past Trudeau has guarded his privacy, even refusing to be photographed with his wife to promote either his career or hers. As a result he is often described as reclusive. Trudeau disagrees: "I live in every way as outgoing a life as any person. I go to movies, I go to restaurants, I see friends." He ducks publicity, he says, partly because it saves time and partly "because I acquired from my father this quaint 19th century notion that as one stumbles through life, one should be far more concerned with reputation than fame." It may be a tribute of sorts to Ronald Reagan that his impact has prompted Trudeau to amend that rule and emerge from his chrysalis of self-imposed silence.