Late Night Responds to Biden's First Presser

Late night hosts joked about the president's age and finger guns as well as his predecessor Thursday following Joe Biden's first press conference since taking office. "Normally, when a 78-year-old answers an hour of questions, they're getting a physical," quipped Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. More:

• Fallon noted the president "talked about the biggest issues facing his presidency—the pandemic, the economy and Dr. Oz hosting Jeopardy," per the New York Times. And "if you did a shot every time Biden said, 'Look, folks,' you got drunker than a ship captain in the Suez Canal."
• "President Biden said, quote, 'I got elected to solve problems.' Um, OK, so what do you know about boats and canals then?" asked Seth Meyers. The Late Night host went on to praise Biden for meeting his goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days, then setting a new goal to vaccinate 200 million people. "It's certainly different from the Trump strategy of overpromising and underdelivering," he noted.
• Meyers said Biden was "at his best when he's got the vibe of an old-timer football coach giving his young squad an inspirational halftime speech." He then turned to Fox News' critiques of the presser. "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!'" he said, per the Week.

• Meyers also poked fun at a moment in which Biden stumbled. "President Biden said he supports changing the rules of the filibuster to require senators to stand and speak, like it was when he was in the Senate, quote, '120 years ago,'" Meyers noted. "Now, obviously he misspoke—120 years ago, he was still in college."
• "He's even more experienced than I thought," said Late Late Show host James Corden of the 120-years slip. "Comically speaking, it should be a less believable number of years," he added. He joked that Biden would've held a press conference sooner "but he spent a full month deciding if he should call on reporters with a point, a finger gun or a wink, and he landed on all three."
• "There were a lot of questions today about immigration after Biden announced that Vice President Harris will be overseeing the challenges at the US-Mexico border," said Fallon. "It's similar to how Trump put Pence in charge of handling the pandemic. When the going get tough, presidents are like, 'You got this, right?'"
• The Late Show noted that in sending back migrants at the border, Biden "made clear that he will deliver on his campaign promise to use a bipartisan approach to treating immigrants inhumanely." Regarding the filibuster, the show joked that Biden had accidentally referred to Republicans as colleagues instead of "perpetually goalpost-moving demons."

(More late night host stories.)