NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers mocked the media’s attention to alleged cover-ups regarding former President Joe Biden’s health, calling it the ‘worst-kept secret’ and questioning why the media had prioritized this over the more pressing issues of political polarization, civil rights, and the country’s economic state. Meyers ridiculed the idea of Biden being accused of hiding his cognitive decline, stating that the public had long known about his age and the associated concerns. He suggested that the media should have been focusing instead on the dismantling of civil society by the Trump administration, which he argued was a more significant issue.
In a humorous take, Meyers pointed out that the media had covered Biden’s age as if it were an extraordinary event, despite polling data showing that a majority of Democrats had long been concerned about his eligibility to run for re-election. He noted that Biden’s age had already been a central topic in multiple media outlets, including his fall on stairs and the controversy surrounding the White House press secretary’s remarks about Biden’s mental state. Meyers also used a sarcastic tone to highlight that the public had already seen and discussed these incidents, implying that the media was hyping a story that was already common knowledge.
Meyers further mocked the media for emphasizing the cover-up narrative over the broader implications of Biden’s age crisis, which he suggested was not a secret but a subject that had been repeatedly covered in the news media. He noted that the media had also covered the same topics about other public figures, such as the Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough relationship, which had become public knowledge, and that the media should not treat Biden’s age as a new and shocking development. He called the cover-up discussion a major scandal, which he compared to events like Watergate and Iran-Contra, but he did so in a humorous and sarcastic tone.
After playing a montage of figures calling the cover-up and Biden’s cognitive decline a media scandal, Meyers highlighted that the public had already seen and discussed these issues, making it an overblown story. He concluded by noting that the real issue, which should have been the focus of the media, was the political and civil consequences of Biden’s age, rather than the alleged cover-up. Meyers also emphasized that those responsible for the cover-up, if any, should be held accountable, but he suggested that the media had not been focusing on the right problems.