Bill Murray: Politics, Comedy Suffer When Divisive, Isolated

Bill Murray said politics and comedy suffer when the approach is isolated and divisive.

"How can Kristen Wiig make everyone laugh?" Murray told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday.

"She's not thinking about being political. She's thinking about what resonates and what is common to all of us, and I think that's harder and harder to do because people are trying to win their point of view as opposed to saying 'What if I spoke to everyone?'"

Murray, who played former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on "Saturday Night Live," also defended friend Jim Downey, a comedy writer whose work has been described as "right-wing" and "conservative."

"He's saying: 'No, I just think the way the Democrats handle things is poor, where they try to pick out little pieces of a population," Murray said. "'We represent the Hispanics, we represent the LGBT or something.' And they're not speaking to everyone all at once. And it's almost demeaning to say, 'I'm choosing you because you're a splinter group, or a certain minority group.' There's almost a resentment that somehow you're separated, again, by a politician.'

"'You're my people,'" he said, imitating a Democratic politician. "'I'm in control of you, I represent you,' instead of thinking that each citizen has a right to be respected as a citizen first, under the laws of the country."

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