Seth Meyers
On Wednesday’s Late Night, Seth Meyers recapped Republican antics over Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, starting with a notable no-show: Marco Rubio. The senator from Florida skipped the national address because he refused to take the required Covid test, claiming he “didn’t have time”.
“I’m sorry, what? You don’t have time to get your nose swabbed for 10 seconds?” Meyers remarked. “Now there’s two possibilities here. One, Marco Rubio is a bozo pandering to a base that somehow thinks a 10-second nose swab is an act of tyranny. Or two, he’s been taking the wrong test. In which case, I empathize with this poor man.
“Look, it sucks for normal people who have to wait in long lines for Covid tests,” Meyers added, “but Rubio is a senator. It would literally take him 30 seconds.”
“This was a joint address to Congress where the president praised brave Ukrainians for resisting Russian aggression and laid out his plan to deter Putin, among many other things, and Rubio just skipped it because he didn’t want to get his nose swabbed,” he continued. “I mean, sorry man, but you don’t get to say ‘no thanks’ when you have an important work meeting.”
Meyers also mocked the performative disruptions of the GOP congresswomen and known conspiracy theorists Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The two women first turned their backs on Biden’s cabinet when they entered the room, and shouted “build the wall!” during Biden’s speech.
Boebert and Greene’s actions “might make you angry”, said Meyers, “but if I’ve learned any one thing from watching Real Housewives, it’s that two white ladies this erratic will eventually turn on one another.
“All these people want is attention and they’re willing to do anything to get it, including yelling at the president during an address to the nation,” he added of Boebert and Greene.
“And look, I don’t care that much about decorum,” he concluded. “I do care about not being annoying, and these two are some of the most annoying people I’ve ever seen on the national stage. I mean, they’re like a non-stop national hangnail.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert checked in on the “fierce Ukrainian resistance” to the Russian invasion, which has led some Russian troops to abandon their arms and tanks. Ukrainian authorities have gone as far as to say that citizens don’t need to declare captured Russian tanks and military equipment for tax purposes.
“Well, that is great news, because we’ve all been there,” joked Colbert. “You come across an abandoned Russian T-72 BT tank and your first thought is ‘how is this going to impact my taxable income?’”
Colbert also showed a clip of a Ukrainian grandmother who explained how she learned to make molotov cocktails by looking on Google. “Ugh, Googling molotov cocktails is always such a pain,” Colbert deadpanned. “Because first you have to scroll through a whole blogpost — ‘as a busy mom, it can be tough to find an explosives recipe that works for the whole family. By the time I get Kayleigh and Braxton home from soccer practice, I just want a 30-minute way to vanquish the armies of darkness. Thank goodness for my Cosori air fryer.’”
To get around internet censorship in Russia, people have been posting Google reviews for restaurants in Moscow and St Petersburg with information on the war in Ukraine, such as “Your president started a war against Ukraine. Your government is lying to you!” and “This is a no win situation for all.”
“That last one is actually the slogan of the Moscow Taco Bell,” Colbert quipped.
Trevor Noah
The State of the Union left us with so many questions: Did Chuck Schumer rehearse that standing ovation? Did Pelosi take all of Biden’s pills? And who is HIM? pic.twitter.com/p0v5GiUSyR
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 3, 2022
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah lightly mocked some of Biden’s gaffes during the State of the Union address. “Biden being Biden, there were a bunch of moments in the speech that were just a little bit weirder than they had to be,” Noah explained, such as when, while trying to praise the administration’s vaccination efforts, Biden said he’d “ordered more pills than anyone in the world has”.
“OK, I guess the party is at Joe Biden’s house tonight!” said Noah.
Biden also tried to praise the people of Ukraine, but ended up saying: “Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but it will never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people.”
“Technically true,” Noah noted. “It is technically true that Putin can do whatever he wants in Ukraine – nothing will make the Iranians back down.
“At times, this speech was like a birthday card from a four-year-old,” he summarized. “A lot of the words didn’t make sense, but you got what it was trying to say.”
