It’s no surprise that Democrats are trying to distance themselves from the revelation that classified materials were found at The Penn Biden Center from President Biden’s tenure as vice president. Late-night hosts reacted to the news in different ways, but all tried to make it about Republicans.
Seth Meyers, on NBC’s Late Night, tried an out of nowhere shot at Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a photoshopped Joker, “The White House announced yesterday that President Biden’s attorneys recently discovered classified documents while packing up the Washington office he used after serving as vice to president, in case you’re wondering why Tucker Carlson did his show tonight in full Joker makeup.”
Stephen Colbert on CBS’s The Late Show made his reaction the most partisan, he described the news as “something stupid… Is this just what every president does now, just scatter a trail of intelligence like Johnny-document Seed?” He managed to include a joke about Biden’s age, “We don’t know how the documents ended up there and it’s unclear what they pertain to. But, given Biden’s age, I assume it’s the Spanish-American War and the digging of the Panama Canal.”
Jimmy Kimmel on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live made fun of the reaction from the “MAGA crowd” and played a montage of various right-leaning individuals. He also argued the two cases are different, “Republicans aren’t entirely wrong about this. We can’t — two sets of rules. We can’t hold Trump accountable for leaving documents around and not Biden.”
Jimmy Fallon on NBC’s The Tonight Show got a few jokes in at the expense of Joe and Hunter Biden, “Obama was like, ‘Nothing to worry about if Joe had access, it wasn’t important. Don’t worry about it.’ Yep, Biden was shocked and said he had no idea how the documents got there. Then Hunter Biden was like, ‘Okay, so don’t get mad.’” He also managed to get a jab at Trump, “Good point, it would be suspicious if classified documents were found at the White House.”
The Late Late Show’s James Corden was the most critical of Biden, “Yeah, but I mean — this is — this is — it’s different to – it’s different to Trump, right? Because — well, it’s different to the Trump– I’m saying it’s not the same as when Trump — a lot of rain in California lately, isn’t there? A lot of — to be fair, if there’s anywhere classified documents would be safe from being read by anyone, it has to be in Joe Biden’s “think tank” office. Isn’t it?”
The Democrats are trying to play this scandal off as two different cases, one that we should be concerned about and one that we should not. This is a narrative that late night hosts have bought into. We should be concerned about both. There should be no double standards. We should hold both Trump and Biden accountable for their actions and not give either special treatment.
