Late-night hosts covered last night’s State of the Union address and how Republicans tried to prevent it from happening while also discussing polls showing that many voters can’t remember some of Donald Trump’s most offensive statements.
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert delivered a live monologue on The Late Show so he could comment on Joe Biden’s State of the Union.
He spoke of concerns before it took place that Biden would be displaying “old-man vibes” but said that it was “kinda hard to fight off the old-man vibes when you’re speaking to a room that looks like an open casket convention”.
He admitted that it had been “kind of a tense night” and that if Trump does end up winning the election then it “might be the last time we get a State of the Union”.
Colbert joked that the alternative would be “a Kid Rock concert and an immigrant catapult”.
He joked that those watching would be curious to know if there were any “thirsty ass bitches in the audience” and said that in fact yes, George Santos was in attendance.
“Come on, you can’t just go back to your old job like you never left!” he said. “Unless you’re Jon Stewart, keep it up Jon, you’re crushing it!”
He showed footage of those attending and quipped: “On the Democratic side, they wore white. On the Republican side, they were white.”
One person who wasn’t there was the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. Colbert said it was “nice to know he’s willing to recuse himself from something”.
Biden’s address ended with an impassioned plea to look forward and hope for a better future which would be filled with acceptance and equality. “The last time an old man was telling us that passionately that he wanted to take us into the future, Marty McFly invented rock n roll,” he joked.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, recorded earlier in the day, Seth Meyers made an assumption that the State of the Union did take place despite Republicans trying to prevent Biden from taking the stage.
Even though it is “a sacred constitutional duty”, many of them were acting like “petulant children” trying to find ways to block it from happening.
Sitting behind Biden, along with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, was the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who this week spoke in awe of Trump, calling his coattails “humongous”.
Meyers said hearing him use that word was “like when your dad tries to use the word slay”.
In preparation for the evening, Biden had Zoomed with actors who played the president, including Morgan Freeman and Geena Davis. “Where the fuck are Harrison Ford and Martin Sheen?” Meyers asked.
He moved on to Tucker Carlson, who had promised a live reaction episode of his online-only show after the State of the Union. “I can’t wait to find out if Biden covered any of Tucker’s favourite topics like tanning your testicles, eating insects, the awesomeness of Putin or the fuckability of the green M&M,” he joked.
Meyers played footage of Trump at a rally this week making bizarre comments, “pretending” that there were too many celebrities in the audience to mention while also telling the younger attendees that he was jealous of their “big, fat futures”.
“Is Donald Trump depressed?” Meyers asked before referring him to “a soulless husk”.
A poll this week showed that 31% of voters were unaware of Trump’s most extreme statements. Meyers believes their inability to remember is because “he can’t even complete a sentence without bursting into flames like a recalled Tesla”.
Trump has been deliberately evasive about how extreme he plans to be on abortion if he wins the presidency and Meyers showed a clip of him claiming he wasn’t yet sure what he intends to do. The host ridiculed his stance, comparing it to someone who “can’t decide between chicken and fish at a restaurant”.
