Colbert interviews Bernie Sanders: 'I hope to be able to work with Joe'

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert kicked off Wednesday’s Late Show with a major diversion from coronavirus updates. “In the Democratic primary, there is big news because there is no Democratic primary,” he said, as Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race that afternoon. “I guess during a pandemic, crazy ideas like Medicare for All just don’t resonate,” Colbert deadpanned.

Later in the show, Colbert phoned Sanders for his first interview since ending his campaign. Sanders, isolating at home in Vermont, thanked his grassroots supporters and volunteers and explained the rationale behind dropping out. “The mathematics is pretty clear that I can’t win,” he said. “And while you can make the argument that you should run a campaign, fight for your ideas, bring people together even if you can’t win, I think the pandemic that we are experiencing right now makes even that virtually impossible.”

Asked if he had spoken with Joe Biden, now the presumptive nominee, Sanders said: “It’s no great secret that Joe Biden’s politics are different than mine. But I have known Joe since I came to the Senate in 2006, worked with him when he was vice-president in the Obama administration.” As he had earlier in his address to supporters, Sanders called Biden a “decent human being” and added: “I hope to be able to work with Joe to move him in a more progressive direction.”

Sanders added that Biden is a “good politician” who “understands that in order to defeat the president, that in order to defeat Trump, he’s going to need to bring new people into his political world and that he’s going to have to listen to their needs” – young people, working people – and “start moving in a different direction, to some degree, than he has in the past.”

“Is that a full-throated endorsement of Joe Biden?” Colbert asked.

The host smiled as Sanders dodged the question: “We’re going to be talking to Joe and we are talking to his team of advisers,” he said, and repeated his promise to do “everything that I can to make sure that Donald Trump is not re-elected”.

Trevor Noah

On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah addressed how coronavirus is striking black Americans the hardest – for example, in Michigan, African Americans make up 14% of the state population but 41% of coronavirus deaths; in Chicago, black people make up 72% of deaths but just 30% of the population.

Even Trump has noticed, saying at a press conference: “It doesn’t make sense and I don’t like it.” “It almost sounds like Trump is jealous that black people get coronavirus more than anyone else,” said Noah, “just because of the way he said it – ‘How come black people are getting it, and not me? What do they have that I don’t have? Is it swag?’”

He was of course joking, Noah clarified, because “if anything, it’s refreshing to see President Trump so concerned about the black community. But when he says it doesn’t make sense that coronavirus is hitting black Americans the hardest – it’s actually the opposite. Because when you look at the systemic and economic factors facing black people in America, it makes complete sense.” Black people are overall less likely to have health insurance, more likely to have pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes, and more likely to be in service jobs without work-from-home options.

“And of course, there’s always just straight-up racism that affects black people as well,” Noah said, such as implicit bias leading doctors to discount symptoms. “So while almost every industry around the world is shut down, it looks like racism is still considered an essential service.”

Samantha Bee

As the coronavirus crisis extends into another month, “the Trump administration has been busy abusing their power and pulling some truly shady shit while we’ve all been busy crafting masks out of our underwear,” said Samantha Bee on Full Frontal. Bee presented a distressing list of changes: rollbacks of EPA regulation and emission standards, and more abuses of power at Ice, “the least necessary government agency since the Bureau of Cassette Tapes and LaserDiscs”.

“Ice decided that since everyone isn’t terrified enough right now, they should keep doing raids while people are stuck at home,” Bee said, noting how agents in Los Angeles had made arrests on the first night of California’s lockdown. “How is it essential to separate families during a health crisis? The only separation that desperately needs to be done right now is separating my hair from my body. I’ve been a mess since my waxing place closed.

“Trump has also used the virus as an excuse to try to slash taxes, make the cuts to the federal interest rate that he already wanted to and to advance anti-union efforts,” Bee continued, which is “the most work he’s ever done. I didn’t think I’d ever say this but someone please find a way to sneak him on to a fucking golf course!

“I know it’s hard to think about anything other than our families, our friends or what our tits will look like after months of not wearing a bra,” Bee concluded, “but unfortunately, we have to. What our government does right now will have a lasting impact on all of us, long after this pandemic is over.”

Seth Meyers

“Seems like almost every day we get more and more evidence that the Trump administration knew well in advance of the very real threat of a pandemic, and that they both ignored it and lied to the American people about it,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night. He showed a series of clips in which Trump claimed the pandemic was impossible to predict, such as: “Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.”

“So nobody could see this coming,” Meyers deadpanned. “Yeah, Taiwan and South Korea and New Zealand and Singapore were all surprised. That’s why they have a combined total of 12,000 cases and we have a total of 400,000 cases.

“Despite Trump’s repeated claims that no one could have foreseen this, it turns out a lot of people foresaw this,” Meyers continued and listed the times Trump was warned about the pandemic:

“First, Obama officials walk Trump aides through a global pandemic exercise in 2017. Then, in 2017 and 2018, threat assessment intelligence analysts even mentioned a close cousin of coronavirus by name, saying it had pandemic potential. Then in 2018, the director for medical and biodefense preparedness at the national security council told a symposium that the threat of pandemic flu is our number one health security concern. Then, top administration officials said last year that the threat of a pandemic kept them up at night. Then, White House economists warned in 2019 a pandemic could devastate America. Then, intelligence reports warned of a coronavirus crisis as early as November. And then, US intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic.

“Well, you know, the saying: eight strikes and you’re out,” Meyers concluded. “Seriously, how many incredibly specific warnings do you need?”