Trevor Noah
Late-night hosts assessed a hot mic moment for Joe Biden on Monday, in which the president insulted a Fox News reporter. At the tail end of a press conference, Fox News’s White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, asked whether Biden viewed inflation as a potential political liability ahead of the midterms this year. His rostrum microphone still on, Biden was heard responding, sarcastically, “that’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.”
Whoever said "there's no such thing as a stupid question," clearly never had to answer a question from Fox News. pic.twitter.com/LR3kISUuNx
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 26, 2022
“This is what happens when you’ve been on Zoom calls for two years,” said Trevor Noah on Tuesday’s Daily Show. “You forget that real life doesn’t have a mute button.
“Now a lot of people are asking if Biden even knew that the microphone was on, but guys please, come on. He’s sitting there talking into a giant microphone, so there’s at least a 50-50 chance he knew it was there.”
As for people online dunking on Doocy for asking a stupid question – “they’re right,” said Noah. “‘Do you think inflation is a political liability?’ is a very stupid question. I mean, what’s Biden supposed to say? ‘No, I think people like spending more money to buy the same shit!’
“I mean, if you get to ask the president a question, you should ask him real questions, like ‘why can’t the CDC get its messaging straight on Covid?’ Or ‘can you ask your dog to stop chewing my arm?’”
Noah also addressed people who have used the moment to compare Biden’s contempt for Doocy to Donald Trump’s well-established animosity toward the press. “I’m sorry, guys, no. I can’t accept that. I cannot believe that someone would even say something so disrespectful about my man Donald Jiujitsu Trump,” he joked.
“Biden dropped one off-handed diss on a reporter, he’s no legend. Attacking the press was Donald Trump’s thing. Shit, you can’t compare these two, it’s like comparing Steph Curry to a random guy who makes one half-court shot during halftime. Show some respect!”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also commented on Biden’s frustration with Doocy. “The media has described this moment as a ‘hot mic’, but I’m not sure how it’s a hot mic when he’s at a press conference in front of a bunch of reporters talking into the same microphone he’s been using the entire time.
“That’s like a celebrity walking the red carpet, poppin’ open their shirt and going, ‘Oops! Nip slip.’
“It’s never appropriate for the president of the United States to have a potty mouth, but it’s especially egregious to call Peter Doocy a son of a bitch,” Colbert joked, as Doocy is the son of the Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy. “So if anything, he’s a son of a Dooce. A real Dooce-bag, if you will.
“On the other hand, he has tested positive for stupid in the past,” he added, pointing to a 2017 clip in which Senator John McCain responded to one of Doocy’s questions with: “Why would you ask something that stupid? Why would you ask something that dumb?”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel checked in on “the unfortunate punching bag when it comes to Covid”, AKA the White House infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. Last week, the New York Post, “looking for anything that they can sink their teeth into”, posted several tweets calling the White House infectious disease expert a “narcissist.”
“This is what they do when they want to say something but they don’t want to say it – they post tweets that say it,” Kimmel said. As evidence, the paper cited a photo of Fauci’s home office, which includes a self-portrait and bobblehead of himself.
“If having a bunch of pictures and bobbleheads of yourself makes you a narcissist, then buckle up, New York Post, because you are not going to like what we found out about this guy,” Kimmel said, pointing to a picture of Donald Trump’s Donald Trump-adorned office.
In other disappointing news for the former president, Kimmel pointed to a new analysis of social media impressions by Axios, which found that the most talked about politician online was the Texas senator Ted Cruz, followed by congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rashida Tlaib. Trump was seventh on the list, behind Nancy Pelosi.
“Wow, good thing Trump doesn’t care about polls and publicity and ratings and stuff like that,” Kimmel joked. “He’s six spots behind Ted Cruz. He’s six spots behind a snowman made of mayonnaise.”