A sketch from this week’s Saturday Night Live devastated presidential candidate Joe ‘Gaffe Machine’ Biden over his recent “coming out” moment at CNN’s LGBTQ town hall on Thursday night.
Portrayed by ‘Hunger Games’, ‘Zombieland,’ and ‘Now You See Me’ star Woody Harrelson, the former vice president came to stage, saying “I’m so excited to be here” only to be pushed away by CNN host Anderson Cooper – portrayed by Alex Moffat.
“Too close, Mr. Vice President, too close,” Moffat’s Cooper said, referencing Biden’s notorious propensity for standing too close to people.
The mock vice president went on to happily announce that “the vast majority of American people are not homophobic.”
“They’re just scared of gay people,” Biden said, to audience laughter.
He then reminded the audience that he advocated for gay marriage, saying he believes that all people are equal.
“Whether you’re gay, lesbi, transgenital or queef, you’re okay with Joe,” said the vice president, notorious for his public speech gaffes, as he grinned his trademark wide confident smile.
When an audience member asked how he can live with his past support for the notorious “Don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” Harrelson’s Biden said he was glad he was asked this question.
“Let me answer this by telling you a false memory,” he said, before telling a deliberately inconsistent story about gay people which supposedly happened to him in Delaware in 1926 (Biden was born in 1942.)
In August, The Washington Post published a fact-checking story revealing that Biden repeatedly told the audience a story about a soldier receiving an award for rescuing a fellow serviceman under enemy fire, in which he managed to get wrong almost every single fact, the only truth being that at some point he visited Afghanistan and that an unnamed soldier received an award for a daring rescue.
“So, in closing, ever been kissed by a VP before?” Biden asked Cooper, before giving the shocked host a smooch to the lips.
The entire scene was based on Biden’s light-hearted moment at a LGBTQ conference Thursday, in which the former vice president (the real one) advocated for better public education on gay discrimination issues.
“It’s really important that we in fact begin to educate people about what’s going on because, for example, when I came out, ” he said before catching himself mid-sentence and rephrasing his comment as: “When I publicly stated…”
Biden was interrupted by cheers from the audience and Cooper’s laconic remark: “that would be news.”
Going into damage control mode, Biden turned it into a joke.
“I got something to tell you,” he told Cooper, to which the host cracked, “I kind of figured it out a while ago.”
To prove the depth of his own emotional concern for queer people, Biden decided to act like one. He flirted with multiple men, joked that he was about to come out as gay, and at one point, clasped Anderson Cooper on the shoulder and mimed giving him a kiss https://t.co/aL2afpl7pf
— IowaGma2 (@Gma2Iowa) October 11, 2019
While the joke was taken humorously by the audience, the stunt sparked accusations for being staged and inappropriate.
