Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert talk Trump, grief, and who can unite America in 2020

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show)

When Joe Biden was last on The Late Show, he was vice president and Donald Trump president-elect, Stephen Colbert reminded Biden on Monday, and he said we should give Trump a shot to do the job. "Have we given him enough of a shot at this point?" Colbert asked. Biden said he reached a tipping point with Trump's response to the white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, and could no longer stay silent.

There has been a lot of talk about not "normalizing" Trump's behavior, "but whoever is the president is de facto presidential," Colbert said. "What do you think has changed about the presidency with him being president? ... How will this influence future presidencies?" "I think, God willing, it will go down as the single exception in American history," Biden said. After the novelty of the Trump show wore off, lots of Americans began to worry about the stability of the Republic, and "but for 74,500 votes ... we'd have a good president," he said. "We're talking about this like it was a wave election." "Only he is," Colbert cut in, getting a laugh from Biden.

Colbert and Biden then turned to Biden's new book, Promise Me, Dad, about staying engaged during and after grief. Finally, Colbert brought up 2020.

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"I'm not going to ask you if you're going to run for president because I know you're not going to give me an answer," Colbert said, and when Biden shrugged, he asked anyway, soliciting a non-answer. "The country's never been more divided, we need a unifier," Colbert said. "Who do you like in the Democratic field, or the Republican field? Who do you think in 2020 could go, that person has a hope of uniting people?" Biden didn't name any names, but he said there's a whole new generation of Democrats entering politics, sick of the division, and the 2020 election won't really start for years. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.