
President Joe Biden’s surprisingly stark and pointed farewell address in which he warned of the myriad pressing dangers posed by the incoming, Trump administration dominated Wednesday’s monologues. And even though hosts chided the outgoing leader for not acting on those warnings before he was essentially in retirement, there was still agreement all around on his main points. Here’s our round-up of the night’s best lines from across the dial.
Seth Meyers
In what Seth Meyers termed his last “A Closer Look” with Joe Biden as President, the host focused in on Biden’s Wednesday farewell address from an Oval Office soon to be reoccupied by Donald Trump. Meyers, along with most of his colleagues, noted how Biden ditched the traditional goodbye playbook of inspiration and hope for a starker series of warnings about topics such as the rise of American oligarchy, the dangers of dark money in politics, and the need to abolish the idea that sitting presidents are immune from prosecution for crimes. (He’s looking at you, Donald.)
“Wow, you really waited until your last day at work to start stuffing the suggestion box,” was Meyers’ sarcastic praise for Biden’s attacks on Trump and his allies. Pointing to the incoming president’s exclusive guest list of tech CEOs, media moguls, and billionaire who’ll be at Trump’s side for Monday’s inauguration, Meyers praised the sitting president for actually acknowledging the rise of an oligarchy class in American politics, even as he went on to play a 30-year montage of Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders making that same point, over and over again.
Making fun of the fact that the perennially irate (and, it turns out, on the money) Sanders has looked and sounded essentially/exactly the same since 1993, Meyers suggested that Sanders is the flip side of Paul Rudd. “There are two ways of never aging. You can start young and stay young like Paul Rudd. Or you can start old and stay old like Bernie.” And while Meyers mocked Sanders for being able to buy alcohol since he was a child, he was unsparing in his agreement with Sanders and Biden that the assembled billionaires’ apparent glee at Trump’s reelection is cause for alarm as well as scorn.
“It should be noted, all these people got richer under Biden, too,” stated Meyers over a photo of Trump’s new best pals Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, “but now they’re super-pissy about it. I guess because Biden didn’t get into jiu-jitsu and retweet their memes enough.”
Jordan Klepper
On The Daily Show, Jordan Klepper also zoomed in on the “thanks for pulling the alarm on your way out of the burning building” nature of Biden’s unvarnished farewell warning. “Okay!,” a nervously laughing Klepper responded to a montage of Biden’s warnings, “Thanks for the encouragement—I’m sh*tting my pants in comfort.” He also admonished the outgoing president for not offering up any helpful solutions on his way out the door, suggesting that Biden’s warnings about the rise of an above-the-law American oligarchy could have been paired with a last-minute pardon for accused healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione.
Onto that word, “oligarchy,” Klepper noted the very real fact that Google searches for the phrase “What is oligarchy?” surged directly after Biden’s speech, offering perhaps a glimpse into just how Americans’ willful ignorance and the media and politicians’ unwillingness to address the issue got us here in the first place. Klepper threw shade at the tech bros currently scrambling to support Trump by suggesting that Google users received the response, “Don’t worry about it,” when researching Biden’s words.
Onto the very real and pressing global issues the incoming administration will have to face come Monday, Klepper segued into a discussion of the just-announced and long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Specifically, Klepper’s focus was on how the pundit class has clambered over each other to champion their chosen presidential figure as the one behind the historic accord. And while Klepper waved away all the predictable media horse race narratives by noting, “stirring up drama is their thing,” he was less sparing of Donald Trump for immediately leaping to claim sole credit for brokering peace, even though he’s not in office yet. (Biden also got some heat, with Klepper noting how the current president’s boast that the current deal is the exact one he’s been pushing for nearly a year isn’t the impressive achievement he thinks it is.)
Meanwhile, everybody may end up with egg on their faces anyway, as Israel is stalling on actually signing the agreement, there’s been a flareup of violence, and the entire delicate truce stands poised to collapse. Hosting a mock point-counterpoint between warring Daily Show correspondents Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic, Klepper could only lambaste both sides for claiming political victory for bragging rights over a bloody conflict that’s still claiming untold lives in the region. Hearing this, partisans Lydic and Kosta immediately flip-flopped by claiming their candidate had nothing to do with it.
Stephen Colbert
After offering up sincere thanks to president Biden for four years of relative sanity and stability, Stephen Colbert offered up this promise to his audience on the last Late Show before Trump retakes office on Monday: “The next time you see me, Donald Trump will be president. And you may not see me. For the next four years, we’re taking this one day at a time.”
Still, Colbert chimed in with the rest of his late-night colleagues both in praising Biden for the bracing warnings delivered in his farewell speech about the incoming dangers of a second Trump term—and for waiting until he had one foot out the door before addressing them. Noting that Biden’s warning about the rise of the “tech industrial complex” echoed Dwight Eisenhower’s famously prescient warning about the influence of money in government, Colbert noted that all our parents’ warnings about Radio Shack have finally come true.
Colbert got serious in discussing just how blatant the corruption of big money influence is shaping up to be under Trump. Noting that tech CEOs and “pasty money-buckets” Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk will be seated on the dais for Trumps’ swearing-in alongside Trump’s cabinet picks, Colbert exclaimed, “Sweet Jesus in a sky box! That is the most corrupt-appearing thing I have ever heard,” adding, “If we’re gonna go complete Roman Empire then at least throw Denzel Washington in there. Or show me Paul Mescal’s dusty butt.”
As for Biden’s too little, too late warning, Colbert could only throw up his hands in frustration. Apart from Biden delivering his pressing concerns in his “trademark low power mode whisper-ramble,” Colbert lamented that it’s not like there’s anything he can do as a private citizen to influence billionaires like Amazon founder Bezos. “I don’t want to support the oligarchy,” Colbert pleaded, “but what, am I supposed to get my Nespresso pods from the store?”
Moving on to the unveiling of the official photo portraits of the incoming president, “Gahhh!!!” At least that was Colbert’s response to Trump’s glaring picture, which Colbert zoomed out to reveal was heightened by Trump holding a flashlight under his chin, campfire tale-style. As for J.D. Vance’s picture, Colbert could only note, “I like how that blue tie brings out the color of his dead soul.”
Trump’s raft of cabinet picks were up next, with Colbert zeroing in this time on embattled Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard. Noting Gabbard’s long history of parroting Kremlin talking points, Colbert suggested that she may not have done all the homework necessary to oversee every U.S. spy network. Revealing a report that Gabbard told skeptical lawmakers of her duties that she’d have to “see when she gets there,” noted improviser Colbert suggested that being the country’s first “improv intelligence director” might be a lot harder than she thinks. “Can we get a suggestion for a country to destabilize?,” Colbert imagined Gabbard in a crisis, “And also an occupation—seriously, what is my job?”
Jimmy Kimmel
The still-burning California wildfires continued to be Jimmy Kimmel’s main topic on Thursday. Kimmel’s been spotlighting the selfless work being done by volunteers and organizations all over Los Angeles (tonight steering viewers to
AltadenaRotary.org), even as he mocked the ways big tech keeps failing us in times of crisis. Noting how Google’s A.I .plucked out three of the worst wildfire hotspots as the day’s most friendly locations for air quality, Kimmel warned, “Just in case you were wondering if A.I .was trying to kill us, it is.”
On President Biden’s address, Kimmel called it “more like a stern talking-to than a speech,” summing up Biden’s somber string of warnings as, “Basically his message was, ‘I’m getting the hell out of here. You probably should, too.'” Kimmel wondered what Fox News and the rest of the right-wing punditry world would do without a Democrat in the White House come Monday, speculating, “I guess it’s back to the gay M&Ms.”
Speaking of the guy who Kimmel claims will be “sleep-farting behind that very same desk” starting next week, the host mocked Trump’s proposed visit to smoldering Los Angeles, speculating it will allow Trump the opportunity to “survey the damage and call people names.” He also brought up Trump’s choice of three right-wing Hollywood actors Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight as “Special Ambassadors” to the movie biz, lamenting, “Kevin Sorbo must be devastated.”
On the topic of the pre-Trump government’s actions against things that are bad for you, Kimmel first brought up the looming ban on red dye #3, a synthetic additive derived from petroleum production and “the reason why your kids get 30 miles to the gallon.” Moving into the tech world, the Sunday deadline for TikTok to either divest from its Chinese government owners or shut down has American young people in even more of an uproar, with Kimmel noting of the Supreme Court’s apparent okay of the ban, “The fate of the fifth most popular social media app on Earth depends on whether a group of teenage girls can deliver a new RV to Clarence Thomas by midnight on Saturday night.”
And while the image of octogenarians deciding the fate of a social media app they neither use nor understand is good for laughs, Kimmel did address the concerns that led to the propsed ban. Noting that the heedless posting habits of young users could wind up as future blackmail once they sober up and get government jobs, Kimmel warned that’s why you should be concerned “when your nephew films himself eating corn on the cob off of a Mikita drill bit.”
Jimmy Fallon
President Biden’s farewell address was also on Jimmy Fallon’s comic radar Thursday, as the Tonight Show host was taken aback by Biden’s bold proposals, including term limits for the Supreme Court, higher taxes on billionaires, and a ban on congressional stock trading. “Wow,” marveled Fallon, “if only Biden were president.”
With Joe Biden’s time in the White House officially coming to an end Monday, Fallon lobbed a few snowballs at Donald Trump’s inauguration. On Trump being 78 when he takes the oath of office, Fallon joked, “In just a few days, it will be out with the old and in with the just slightly less old.” And on that oath, Fallon predicted, “On Monday at noon, Trump will take the oath of office, then out of habit he’ll put his hand on the Bible, sign it, and then try to sell it for bitcoin.”
Fallon also addressed one of the big tech honchos Biden was warning about as he channeled the thoughts of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew upon accepting Trump’s invite to attend as, “Oooo, spying in person!”
Onto to the airline jokes. Fallon noted that a Southwest pilot was recently arrested in the cockpit for DUI, but counseled fliers, “This doesn’t happen on Spirit because all of their pilots have to blow into a breathalyzer to start the plane.” As for Trump Transportation Secretary nominee Sean Duffy claiming that troubled airline Boeing needs “tough love,” Fallon deadpanned, “Also doors.”
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