Longtime supporters of Joe Biden are finding all sorts of ways to honor the current president’s legacy in the wake of his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential campaign. For Stephen Colbert, that means refraining from cracking wise about Biden’s age.
The host kicked off Monday’s episode of The Late Show with a “salute [to] this good man for the selfless act of stepping aside from being the most powerful person in the world for the greater good.”
“You don’t see that everyday,” Colbert said about Biden’s decision. “Courage. Grace. Humility. True patriotism. I will tell you one thing: that guy would make a great president.”
Though he didn’t hesitate to have a little fun with the weekend’s political whiplash (largely at Wolf Blitzer’s expense), Colbert also took a moment to make a sincere address to his audience:
“Speaking personally, I am going to miss Joe Biden. On this very program, right over there, on September 10, 2015, I encouraged then-Vice President Biden to run. He ignored me for five years, then he did it. And I believe he has been a great president.
“He steered this country out of a horrific pandemic,” Colbert continued. “He saved countless lives by encouraging people to get vaccinated. He brought the economy back. He rallied our allies. He reasserted America’s place in the world stage. And most inspiring of all: At no time was he Donald Trump.”
Because of all this and more, Colbert announced that he was officially retiring his Joe Biden aviators. More importantly, the host explained, “I am retiring all of my ‘Joe Biden is old’ jokes. They were starting to get tired anyway—just like Joe Biden.”
After promising that that was his final Old Joe crack, Colbert then announced that he was “unretiring” the jokes, which he keeps in a handy binder, and would instead be “using them on Donald Trump who, at 78, is the oldest nominee of the two major parties to ever run for president. I mean, that guy is so old, he used to judge the Miss Pangea pageant. When he was a kid, his phone number was 8.” You get the gist.