Seth Meyers Offers A Closer Lick At His Outing With Joe Biden

Seth Meyers’s A Closer Look segments are often a highlight of a show already jam-packed with goodness. He takes a deep dive into a certain topic (or topics) in the news and through sharp, punchy writing and exquisite delivery, covers a story in a way only Meyers can. Now, in a Twilight Zone-like twist, Meyers is the subject of his newest Closer Look, and he’d rather that weren’t the case.

This week, Meyers celebrated his show’s 10th anniversary. As a nod to his first show, he invited one of his first guests, Amy Poehler, to join him. Poehler then invited President Joe Biden to join them as well. As a quick aside, it cracked me up how much the audience played along with the “surprise” as if each one hadn’t likely had to be given security clearance of some kind. No, the only one truly caught by surprise by the whole affair was Meyers.

After the interview, Biden invited Meyers to join him for some ice cream. Meyers accepted and found himself in a situation of Forest Gump-like proportions. Seth Meyers, ice cream cone in hand, stood near the President as he fielded questions on the most softball of topics: the Middle East. Biden was also licking an ice cream cone, landing both men on every cable news channel imaginable.

As you can assume, right-wing pundits lunged at the opportunity to criticize the moment whilst throwing several wayward jabs at Meyers as well. Meanwhile, Meyers (playfully) wasn’t having any of it. He railed against the media’s attempts to smear his name or, in one case, mispronounce it. He was also understandably annoyed at FOX News’ (expected) hypocrisy. They were ragging on the ice cream, despite hosting the owner of Friendly’s for an ice cream social just last June.

It’s all worth it to see Meyers roast himself for 11 minutes. I haven’t laughed at one of these segments this hard in a while. That is partly because the subject matter is so silly and Meyers offers a career performance. He’s mad, but smirking, but screaming, but giggling. It’s marvelous.