"Well, guys, after 64 days in office, today President Biden held his very first press conference," Jimmy Fallon said on Thursday's Tonight Show. "Normally when a 78-year-old answers and hour of questions, they're getting a physical. It was quite the event. If you did a shot every time Biden said 'Look, folks,' you got drunker than a ship captain in the Suez Canal."
Fallon obviously taped his show before Biden's press conference — he suggested any of the reporters asked about the COVID-19 pandemic, for example — but Late Night's Seth Meyers watched the event. Biden's presidency has been boring and popular, "and because Fox couldn't find anything else to jump on, they decided to spend weeks obsessing over the whole press conference thing," he said. "Fox has also been full of absurd and baseless speculation about what would happen at this press conference," Meyers demonstrated. "Maybe Fox News just can't believe that a president would be able to give a coherent answer to a question without a teleprompter: 'He must have had a script, he didn't suggest chugging bleach once!'"
They didn't get the gaffes or blunders that they wanted. The president's opening announcement that 200 million people will get vaccinated in his first 100 days, not 100 million, "is Biden at his best, when he's got the vibe of an old-timer football coach giving his young squad an inspiration halftime speech," Meyers said. "On the other hand, he gets a little off-track when he trails off, like he did at the end of an answer on immigration."
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"And there were some other weird moments, too, like when Biden was asked about the tidal wave of GOP voter-suppression laws Republicans have unleashed," and he followed a perfectly good answer by saying it "makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle," Meyers said. "Jim Eagle? Are you talking about the Muppet? Jim Eagle sounds like a desperate guess on Jeopardy! for the question 'He was the lead singer of the Eagles.'"
"Whatever you thought of Biden's press conference," Meyers said, "it was certainly refreshing to see a president directly answer reporters' questions without attacking anyone or melting down." There are also lots of borderline NSFW Ted Cruz jokes. Watch below. Peter Weber
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