Stephen Colbert used a Dr. Seuss parody to mock President Biden’s apparent cognitive decline Wednesday — as a slew of late-night TV hosts start turning on the embattled 81-year-old following his train-wreck debate performance.
Colbert opted to poke fun at Biden for the duration of his “The Late Show” monologue Wednesday night, joking at one point that he’d come across a new book titled, “Oh, the Places For Joe!” — a spoof on the rhyming children’s book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
“Is he mentally fit? Can he serve a whole term? Can he beat RFK with his brain full of worm?” the host quipped.
“Just ask him, just ask him, the man loves to talk, as long as you ask him before 8 o’clock.”
Colbert is among the chorus of late-night hosts who started using Biden as a punch line this week amid widespread calls for the president to give up his 2024 re-election campaign and allow a new Democratic presidential nominee.
With the majority of their shows on hiatus the week after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate, Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart wasted no time dedicating monologues and skits to Biden’s ongoing saga when they got back in their chairs on Monday.
Addressing Biden’s insistence on staying in the 2024 race, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” host joked on Monday that the president is “basically the guy doing 30 in the left lane and he ain’t moving for anybody.”
He added that the only recourse for Democrats now was to “tie a bunch of balloons to the White House and hope he floats away like the old guy from ‘Up.’”
Then, during a skit where Fallon played Biden taking a post-debate phone call from former President Barack Obama (played by Dion Flynn), he mocked the president’s public memory lapses.
“People are worried because sometimes you seem to lose your train of thought mid-sentence, trail off, and then say a random word,” Flynn’s Obama said.
“Well, I can tell you that is simply and utterly … wheelbarrow,” Fallon’s Biden hit back. “You see? Now, there you go again,” Flynn responded.
Seth Meyers, rather than mocking Biden directly, laid into Democrats during Wednesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” show for allowing the current saga to escalate on the public stage by skirting around the issue.
“Don’t just mope around. Do something,” the host said. “If you think Biden should step aside, then tell him to get out and start the process of replacing him. If you think he should stay in, then get to work and right the ship now.”
“But this melancholy, hand-wringing, woe-is-me bulls–t is so exhausting,” he continued.
“No one cares how sad you guys are. Democracy is on the line,” he added.
“Democrats don’t seem to be treating the situation with the urgency it requires.”
Ripping into the Dems even further, Meyers said, “You guys are talking about him the way disappointed parents talk about a college student’s major: ‘I mean, I wish he was pre-med, but he fell in love with improv.’”
Meanwhile, over at “The Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart repeatedly bashed Democrats for ignoring voters’ fears — accusing them of effectively telling Americans to “Get on board or shut the f–k up.”
He stated bluntly that standing by the “suffocating gerontocracy” of the president in the light of his debate debacle was a threat to “our democracy.”
“An arthritic status quo, unable or unwilling to respond in any way to the concerns of voters who just received new and urgent information about their candidate also erodes confidence and faith in the system of government,” Stewart warned during Monday’s monologue.
This week’s late-night lineup marks a considerably different tone from the hosts given they have largely steered clear of criticizing Biden — opting instead to repeatedly make former President Donald Trump the butt of their jokes.
Some on social media were quick to point out that losing support from the TV funnymen after his disastrous debate performance was a dire sign.
“When you lose late night TV the end is near as Jimmy Fallon mocks Biden and Pelosi on whether he should drop out,” one person posted on X.
“All the late night talk show hosts are dumping on Biden. They must have just got the memo. Switcherooo time? But who? Michelle has the best chance to beat Donald,” another added, referring to former first lady Michelle Obama as a potential replacement.
Another chimed in: “Massive donors backing out. Celebrity endorsements backing out. Media endorsements backing out. Late night hosts are humiliating him. Members of his party are calling for him to call it quits. I think Joe Biden is officially done.”