Speed Reads

state of the union 2018

Stephen Colbert asks the Pod Save America hosts if they felt Trump's State of the Union bipartisan love

Stephen Colbert had the three hosts of America's top political podcast, Pod Save America's Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, on his live Late Show Tuesday night, following President Trump's first State of the Union speech.

Trump offered some bipartisan sentiments in his speech, Colbert reminded the three Democratic speechwriters and spokesmen. "Did you feel reached-out-to in any way?" "I don't know how you take a speech and divorce it from an entire year of actions," Vietor said. "He talks about reaching out to Democrats, he's never apologized for any of it," Lovett added. "The only people in that room that don't care whether or not Donald Trump apologizes are people like Ted Cruz, who just supplicated themselves before this guy that called his wife ugly and said that his father killed JFK."

"Is there anything about the speech that you agreed with?" Colbert asked. "He talked about criminal justice reform, but he's not going to do anything about that," Favreau said. "He might have a reason coming up to make prisons a lot nicer," Colbert joked. Favreau said that, stylistically, Trump fell flat because he "did the 'I'm reading a hostage statement' kind of delivery. He wasn't allowed to use his Twitter voice." "Nothing in the speech tonight will be as memorable as any one Trump tweet, because it's focused and he can drive a narrative, and you remember it," Vietor said. "No one will remember tonight."

They ended with punchy reactions to the Democratic response from Rep. Joe Kennedy III. "I think he did really well — it's such a tough job to have," said Favreau. "No one wants that job." "It's ruined more politicians than prostitution, but he did fine," Lovett said. "Please don't say the word 'Kennedy' and 'prostitution' in the same sentence," Colbert deadpanned. "The guy's got a career to look out for." Watch below. Peter Weber