30 most shocking late night scandals

23. David Letterman goes off on John McCain for canceling an appearance

In 2008, presidential hopeful John McCain was all set for an appearance on David Letterman’s late night show. Before the interview took place, however, McCain would cancel the appearance. The reason given was that McCain needed to travel back to Washington D.C.

Sometimes guest cancellations happen, and this would have been the end of it. But Letterman soon noticed that McCain had in fact stayed in New York, doing an interview with Katie Couric. Feeling slighted, Letterman felt very annoyed by McCain ditching his show and the bogus reason given for it.

So leave it to Dave to get some payback in the form of televised jokes. McCain found himself on the butt end of many Letterman jokes moving forward. Letterman would absolutely roast the senator, poking fun at his failed presidential campaign among other things. It was clear that Letterman was not pulling punches when it came to mocking Senator McCain.

These two were able to settle the feud, for all intents and purposes, later on. McCain did finally make a return appearance to the show. He formally apologizes to Letterman for bailing on him, but the whole exchange is still pretty awkward.