Seth Meyers took a closer look at last night’s CNN Democratic primary debate, the first of two nights in which ten candidates vying for the nomination faced off in Detroit. Meyers noted the winners and losers of the night, pulling out the best quips and comebacks.
But first he looked at yesterday’s session of Trump yelling over a helicopter, in which the president made some accidental confessions.
“There’s no strategy, I have no strategy, there’s zero strategy,” said Trump about his racist tweets on Baltimore and Rep. Elijah Cummings.
Quipped Meyers: “That would be an accurate Trump response to literally any question.”
Meyers noted another accidental confession that came just moments later.
“He was also asked by reporters about a bipartisan election security bill that Mitch McConnell is blocking,” said Meyers. “Trump tried to defend him, but I don’t think his comments were helpful.”
Said Trump: “Mitch McConnell is a man that knows less about Russia and Russia’s influence than even Donald Trump, and I know nothing.”
Continued Meyers: “I agree. I mean, this is a crazy day. And, again, an answer that could work for literally any question. After his presidency is over and they haul him in on obstruction of justice charges, he’s going to be telling the cops, it was all Mike Pence’s idea: ‘I know nothing.'”
Meyers then moved on to the debate, and the tag team of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and the “big questions” ahead of the debate: “Like who the hell are these guys? (shows clip of John Hickenlooper, John Delaney, and Steve Bullock); would Beto bust out his Spanish again?; would Tim Ryan get caught touring the debate stage again (with backward baseball cap) looking like a pledge from Sigma Chi?; and would Marianne Williamson explode into a thousand butterflies that spell out the word ‘love’?”
Meyers blasted the amount of time it took to get to an actual debate question – “you could have watched an entire episode of Veep.”
Next it was on to some of the best lines of the night. Bernie Sanders telling John Delaney “you’re wrong” and Elizabeth Warren scolding the rest of the field for using Republican talking points and saying the Democrats would be taking any piece of health care away from people.
Said Meyers: “Elizabeth Warren will turn this car around right now and nobody’s going to Disneyland!”
Bernie’s feistiness was also on display when he blasted John Delaney regarding “Medicare for All”, telling Delaney that he “wrote the damn bill.”
Tim Ryan better hope ‘Medicare for All’ passes, because he’s gonna need some healthcare for that burn. Bernie scared him so bad Ryan turned white as a sheet 40 years ago. Tin Ryan got owned so hard his hat flew back on to his head.”
Hickenlooper mocked Bernie by telling him to throw his hands up, which Bernie did, and Hickenlooper mocked again.
“I feel like that’s the first and only time John Hickenlooper has said, “throw your hands up. You don’t challenge Bernie to pull a Bernie.”
Meyers then highlighted the line of the night, Elizabeth Warren’s question: “I don’t know why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”
“It’s like if Ronald Reagan had said, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, make this wall a little shorter.'”
Meyers also looked at Marianne Williamson’s much-applauded answer on the Flint water crisis: “Wait, was that good? Is Marianne Williamson like one of those elves you have to listen to a couple of times before you figure out what they’re trying to do?”
And here’s Stephen Colbert’s take on the evening, in two parts:
And here are some straight-up highlight reels:
