Despite admitting he hasn’t been keeping up with the Trump administration’s daily coronavirus briefings, Late Show host Stephen Colbert didn’t mind bashing them anyway on his early Friday morning show.
Colbert had sympathetic listeners in his guests, former Obama staffers and Pod Save America hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor. After the CBS host complained he was “enraged” by the uninformative briefings, which he wasn’t really watching, he let his anti-Trump guests take over with their own rant-fests:
"We went from very few White House press briefings to watching two hours of the Trump show every day at 5:00, I guess. I have to admit, I have not watched a lot of it because it doesn't seem that informative and it's just generally enraging. What do you make of it? Have you been watching?" Colbert posed.
Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Obama griped that these briefings were just “campaign rallies” for his “lies” and “misinformation.” Colbert defended the White House press corps shameful hackery during these briefings, by claiming Trump was unfairly “attacking the press” for just “asking questions.” Lovett also mocked the president touting the hopeful drug, Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19:
FAVREAU: You are correct, Stephen, not very informative and enraging, that's exactly what they are. I've sadly been watching every day because I'm a masochist. I think he gets up there, he lies a lot, he contradicts the medical experts who are there with him, who he should be allowing to speak and sort of take the lead on this stuff. He at some point realized since he can't do campaign rallies, he can still command a huge audience with these briefings, so he turned them into essentially campaign rallies. He's attacking sleepy Joe Biden up there, the Democrats, he's saying at lot of the stuff he would say if he was at a campaign rally.
COLBERT: Attacking the press for asking questions at a press briefing.
VIETOR: Right, he attacks the press, he attacks the press all the time.
LOVETT: He also prescribes medicine. So he has that role to play.
Just last week, these ex-Obama alumni urged the press to censor President Trump’s briefings.
Favreau then attacked Trump for giving "false hope." Favreau wouldn't acknowledge that there are signs of hope, such as the curve starting to flatten in some hot spots. Instead, the Democrat sneered that Trump was “giving false hope” and “doing more harm than good” by giving the public information instead of fearmongering like the media has been doing:
It's not very informative and, you know, what he's trying to do is convince the American people every day that things are fine and, you know, obviously, the president should be giving people optimism but they shouldn't be giving people false hope, and I think the danger is that there are so many mixed messages coming from those briefings -- wear masks but I'm not going to wear a mask, and this is going to be the worst week for the United States in history but also there's a light at the end of the tunnel. He continues to offer these mixed messages and misinformation in the middle of a public health crisis and so I think on balance these briefings are doing more harm than good for the country.
While not having anything nice to say about President Trump, the Obama bros practically salivated when asked about the former vice president’s chances to beat Trump. Vietor gushed his level of enthusiasm was off the charts for the “incredibly competent” Joe Biden who “has direct experience in handling a pandemic.” He added, “in many ways we're lucky to have Joe Biden at the top of this ticket.” Of course, no mention of the many criticisms Biden received for spreading misinformation during that same crisis by either Vietor or Colbert.
