President Biden was attacked by a cicada at Joint Base Andrews before boarding Air Force One for Europe on Wednesday. Late night hosts found this particularly amusing.
"The president's trip got off to a bit of a rough start," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Last night the press charter plane was delayed by cicadas — the flying insects had filled the planes engines." The White House was eventually "able to call in a new plane and a new pilot, but the plane was delayed again when it turned out the pilot was also a cicada," he joked
"Reporters weren't the only ones who had to face the swarm on their way to Europe," Colbert said, setting up Biden's cicada attack. "Whoa! Forget the Secret Service, that man needs a swat team. The cicadas are all over D.C. In fact, yesterday the swarm cloud was so dense that it could actually be seen captured on weather radar. Never a comforting sign when your weather report sounds like the Book of Revelations. 'Wednesday we're gonna have swarms of locusts; tomorrow, rivers of blood; Friday, fire will rain from the heavens and you'll be trampled by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, so pack an umbrella.'"
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Yes, "even Biden had some cicada trouble of his own here this morning, swatting one away before his flight," Jimmy Fallon said at The Tonight Show. "Tomorrow that cicada will be on Fox News in a neck brace calling for Biden to be impeached. ... Meanwhile, Mike Pence was like, 'Bugs on your head? You're supposed to save that for the big debate."
"And this was crazy — the plane carrying White House reporters to Europe was delayed for several hours due to mechanical issues caused by cicadas," Fallon said. "United was like, 'Ooh, that's good, can we use that?'"
"If this was a movie, the government would have to go to a cabin in the woods to convince Sully Sullenberger to do one last job," Jimmy Kimmel joked at Kimmel Live. "These poor cicadas. They come out once every 17 years, they're like, 'Hey guys!' We're like, 'Gross! Get away from us.' And then they're like, 'But we just want to go check out the engine of this plane.'" He reminded viewers about what life was like back in 2004, when the cicadas last emerged from the earth. Watch below.
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