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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

Seth Meyers on Biden attacking concert ticket fees: ‘Might be a secret Swiftie’

Seth Meyers: ‘I do get nervous whenever Biden uses props. It’s like when you sit down next to an old guy on a plane and he wants to show you pictures of a Thunderbird on his phone.’
Seth Meyers: ‘I do get nervous whenever Biden uses props. It’s like when you sit down next to an old guy on a plane and he wants to show you pictures of a Thunderbird on his phone.’ Photograph: YouTube

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and his focus on “economic populism” – breaking up tech monopolies, capping drug prices and bringing down extraneous fees.

He included ticketing companies that make concerts even more expensive, recalling the recent Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift controversy which led Meyers to ponder that he “might be a secret Swiftie”.

Biden also spoke about the importance of American-made materials, “without going on a bunch of insane tangents” like his predecessor probably would have.

“If that had been Trump, that speech would have been twice as long and he would’ve gone off-script after every line,” he said.

Meyers noticed a trend in the issues that Biden was bringing up. “Drug prices, internet companies, junk fees – he basically took everything grandpas complain about and turned it into a speech,” he joked.

Biden also spoke about Republicans trying to cut social security and Medicare without naming names, something Meyers called a “passive-aggressive grandpa move” but after backlash, he later brought physical proof to a speech in Wisconsin that Republicans Ron Johnson and Rick Scott intended to do exactly that.

“I do get nervous whenever Biden uses props. It’s like when you sit down next to an old guy on a plane and he wants to show you pictures of a Thunderbird on his phone,” Meyers quipped.

A congressional hearing with Twitter employees also turned into a slanging match this week when Republicans Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene launched attacks after their Twitter accounts had been impacted. Greene’s account had been affected after she “repeatedly lied and spread dangerous misinformation about the Covid vaccine”.

The angry mood in the room “answers the question: what would Twitter look like if it was a physical room?”

A later highlight saw a Twitter employee asked to read out a tweet from Chrissy Teigen that referred to Trump as a “pussy ass bitch”, which is “an official part of the congressional record, and only because he complained about it”.

Jimmy Fallon

On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon spoke about the Chinese balloon, and how it has been found to include “tech to monitor our communications”.

He joked: “When they heard that, Siri and Alexa were like, ‘Oh hell no, that’s our job.’”

The balloon allegedly spied on calls and text messages, which led Fallon to quip that the Chinese would say, “based on what we’ve gathered, we should invest in eggplants.”

This week also saw Biden tease his re-election campaign, referring to his age as something that shouldn’t be an issue. “I’m not saying he’s old but Biden actually ate the original Werther’s Original,” he joked.

Kamala Harris also called Biden “bold and vibrant” this week, which “sounds like something you’d say when you’re asked to describe a wine but you don’t know what you’re talking about”. Fallon also said it sounded like “the way Sephora describes a lipstick”.

After announcing financial difficulties, Disney also announced new sequels this week to Frozen and Toy Story. “Prince Harry heard the words Frozen and Woody, and had a traumatic flashback,” he joked.

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