Colbert, Joe Biden, and Uber: Politics, Religion, Grief, and the Protest We Didn't See
On last night’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert conducted an interview with Vice President Joe Biden that immediately distinguished him from his late-night network peers, allowing for serious emotion and soul-searching to emerge from amidst the joking and jaunty music of these kinds of shows.
Early on in the interview, Colbert expressed his condolences to Biden for the recent death of his son Beau at age 46 from brain cancer. “I was a helluva success [as a parent],” said Biden, because “my son was better than me.” Colbert asked Biden to tell stories about Beau, a decorated war veteran, and the vice president complied, even as he acknowledged that there are “a lot of people, some probably in this studio audience, who don’t have the tremendous support I’ve had.”
Instead of letting it drop, Colbert pressed Biden on how his faith sustained him in these ordeals. Biden said that he found comfort in “the culture and theology” of his Catholicism — “It’s the place you can go,” he said.
Discussions of private faith on TV, especially in an entertainment context, usually make me uncomfortable, but Colbert, a practicing Catholic himself, managed to introduce the topic in a way that felt like a natural extension of the conversation. It also, in TV terms, took back the discussion of faith from cable-news channels that cast religion as the unassailable trump card in any situation, steamrolling all other intellectual concerns.
Although Colbert was not able to get what all late-night hosts want — a declaration of a run for the presidency that would be a major media scoop — the host’s interview drew out something that I heard as close to definitive: Biden doesn’t sound as though his heart is in a presidential run. “I don’t think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president, and two, they can look at folks out there and say I promise you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy, and my passion,“ Biden said. “And I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there. I’m being completely honest. Nobody has a right in my view to seek that office unless they are willing to give it 110 percent of who they are."
It was an excellent interview. So was the one that followed: Colbert’s grilling of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who failed miserably at explaining how he was going to launch a food-delivery version of Uber despite Colbert’s repeated efforts to let him rephrase his answers. Colbert likened what he heard to a plan that amounts to an Uber car “driving around with a tuna fish sandwich in the glove compartment” until someone who wants a tuna sandwich texts a desire for one.
One disappointment: It was reported that the taping of the show was interrupted by a protestor in the audience objecting to Uber “ruining” the New York taxi system. That exchange was edited out of the broadcast. Too bad — I’d have thought that Colbert, in his quest for spontaneity, would have found a way to include the moment. It would have made for interesting television.
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS.
