Stephen Colbert has given up even trying. The Late Night host is, theoretically, supposed to be focused on making a wide swath of the country laugh. But more and more, he seems to view his job as offering impassioned endorsements of Joe Biden. Colbert on Thursday shifted from jokes to a TV op-ed: “This evening, Joe Biden showed himself to be a man who is decent, compassionate, flawed but honest. And that is water in the desert.”
Don’t expect a lot of mockery for Biden’s verbal miscues in the next 74 days to the election. Colbert declared, “And when he gaffes — which he does, often — it's because his heart gets ahead of his words.” Yet the host famously made fun of George W. Bush for his gaffes? Bush’s heart must not have been in the right place.
Colbert concluded with an endorsement: “When Trump tweets his all-caps rebuke tomorrow morning, it's just going to show how our president is not presidential, but Joe Biden is.”
Later, Colbert interviewed Hillary Clinton. Here’s the new, Democratic-approved version of comedy: Joking about the country apologizing to Clinton:
I want to commend you for something because you, I believe you resisted the temptation — and you have the absolute right — to say I told you so. You didn’t literally say those words.
Colbert expressed regret for the country: “Because you did tell us so. You really did tell us so. I was reading some of your convention speeches from four years ago. You told us then.” He then wondered if, somehow, she could get one more presidential chance: “Is there any part of you that wishes you could take another crack at Trump, like another shot at this?”
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A partial transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Late Show With Stephen Colbert
8/21/2020 (8/20/2020 show)
12:13 AM ETSTEPHEN COLBERT: . Throughout the convention, it was a common theme: Joe Biden's history of loss and suffering. Surprisingly, we didn't get a lot of jokes out of it, but there was a reason the convention hammered this point home, to cast Joe Biden in stark contrast with Donald Trump. Donald Trump couldn't overcome any of the challenges of his presidency because he's never had to overcome anything at all. This is a grownup version of the college essay that asks you to write about a challenge you faced, and instead of scrambling to put together a story about bouncing back from getting second chair in your high school's a cappella group, Joe Biden has a real answer.
This evening, Joe Biden showed himself to be a man who is decent, compassionate, flawed but honest. And that is water in the desert. He is the sort of person who thinks before he says things, and when he gaffes — which he does, often — it's because his heart gets ahead of his words. He cares, and he tries his hardest. He's like a lot of people I know and you do, too, which shouldn’t seem remarkable, but right now it is. And when Trump tweets his all-caps rebuke tomorrow morning, it's just going to show how our president is not presidential, but Joe Biden is.
...
COLBERT: I want to commend you for something because you, I believe you resisted the temptation — and you have the absolute right — to say I told you so. You didn’t literally say those words.
HILLARY CLINTON: Yeah, I was thinking that colud be about the shortest speech in convention history, right?
COLBERT: “I told you so.”
CLINTON: Just drop the mic.
COLBERT: That's exactly right, because you did tell us so. You really did tell us so. I was reading some of your convention speeches from four years ago, you told us then.
...
COLBERT: You know, I think, in a strange way, I take people having voted for Donald Trump not believing it would be this bad as somehow a sign that they don't perceive everything as transactional and selfishly. They just didn't imagine anybody could be so lack in service of others and only in service of their own appetites. They just didn't believe anyone would be like that, which sort of says something nice about the American people, I suppose.
...
COLBERT: Is there any part of you that wishes you could take another crack at Trump, like another shot at this?
