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.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"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
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wifespeed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play
