Late-night hosts talked the coverage anticipating Joe Biden’s Nato press conference and the White House’s response to George Clooney’s op-ed calling for a new Democratic nominee.
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers continued to look into Joe Biden’s fragile candidacy after his performance in the debate, ahead of a Nato press conference meant to assuage concerned voters. Trump, meanwhile, spent time at a campaign stop talking about how he didn’t know what Nato was before becoming president.
“This man is bragging about how dumb he is, and yet he is still leading in the polls,” said Meyers on Thursday’s Late Night. “Which is why an increasing number of Democrats are calling on Biden to make way for someone who has a better chance of winning.”
One of those is the actor George Clooney, who penned an op-ed in the New York Times this week titled: “I love Joe Biden. But we need a new nominee.”
Clooney argued for a new nominee, saying the Joe Biden he talked to at a fundraiser he held earlier this month was the same shaky candidate seen at the debate. The White House clapped back this week, saying Clooney left the fundraiser three hours before the president did.
“Your slam on Clooney is that he left the fundraiser three hours early?” Meyers laughed. “No shit! He’s got better places to be. He’s George Clooney! You think he needs to stick around and beg for money at a fundraiser? He got money.
“Maybe this should be inspiration,” Meyers continued. “Maybe the only way Biden can win this fight is to assemble a crack team of well-funded, highly skilled bank robbers, Ocean’s Eleven style. There’s Gavin Newsom, the smooth-talking frontman. Pete Buttigieg, the expert safe-cracker. And Kamala Harris, the genius card-counter posing as the drunk aunt at the craps table.”
Jokes aside, Meyers diagnosed the moment before Biden’s press conference as a crucial one for Democrats, who need to either stick with Biden or pick a new nominee. “Democrats have a very, very strong case to make against Donald Trump’s toxic and deeply unpopular agenda,” he concluded. “But the turmoil over Biden’s candidacy is overshadowing all of it. There’s still time to turn things around but Democrats need to choose a path now and start the work of righting the ship.”
Stephen Colbert
“This is a critical moment,” said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show ahead of Biden’s press conference. “He has to prove that even though he’s old he’s still energetic and ready to serve.
“I am rooting for Joe Biden,” Colbert added. “I hope he blows the socks off of everybody with his vitality. I hope he levitates. I hope he picks up a manhole cover and throws it 400 yards. I hope he pulls an 18-wheeler with his teeth – which I believe he can do, because he may be 81, but his teeth are not old enough to vote yet.”
“Not everyone is confident that Biden can bring it,” he noted, including several senior Democrats. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who has publicly supported the president, has privately signaled to donors that he is open to a presidential ticket without Biden at the top.
Though Biden has adamantly maintained that he is staying in the race and will win, NBC News reported that his campaign was quietly assessing the viability of Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump in a new head-to-head poll. “Gang, do not let Joe catch you doing that,” Colbert joked.
And the New York Times reported that some Biden advisers were discussing how to convince him to step aside. “That is not going to be easy,” said Colbert. “They’re thinking about just putting a Klondike bar on a string and pulling it slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
