Joe Biden’s pretty old. He’s even older than the guy whose brain is broken and who’s threatening to be a dictator who’ll help start World War III. But yeah, 81 is old, and if re-elected, he’ll be 82 by the time his second term begins. SNL usually reserves their Cold Open for the broken brain guy and/or his cronies. But on the most recent episode, they decided to come for the other presidential candidate.
The sketch found one Biden associate after another making over-the-top claims about his vim and vigor. Michael Longfellow’s Gavin Newsom was first, going on CNN to tell Heidi Gardner’s Dana Bash that the president wasn’t just responsible for a strong economy, but also Beyoncé going country and the return of the Shamrock Shake. Newsom even had an answer for the “Sleepy Joe” nickname.
“Even when he’s sleeping he’s on,” he claimed. “The other day he was taking a nap and I whipped a baseball at him, and he caught it like De Niro in Awakenings.” (It’s worth noting that that 34-year-old reference was to a film that came out when Biden was in his late 40s.)
Ego Nwodim’s Karine Jean-Pierre was next, calling Biden “the most vigorous man I’ve ever known.” She laid out his morning schedule, which included a 7am Soul Cycle class — not one he takes but one he leads. She also tried to make his age a perk not a bug.
“He was 30 years old before Roe vs. Wade was instated, so you know he was smashing,” she said. “He dealt with those restrictions then as a young, handsome man, and he can deal with them now as an old, even more handsome man.”
Then there was Marcello Hernández as nearly impeached Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who called him a “dynamo.”
“This weekend we both went down to the border town in Brownsville, Texas. And Joe went into beast mode,” he said. “He said we’re going to tighten this border. Look how easy I can cross it. Then he parkoured up to the top of the border wall, pro-flipped into the Rio Grande and came back up with a fish in his mouth. But you didn’t report that because it doesn’t fit your little narrative.”
Anyway, so Joe Biden is old! The other guy is, too, and he’s also the one who doesn’t understand how magnets work.
You can watch the SNL Cold Open in the video above.