Presidential Election of 2024

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      Jon Stewart Is a Little Stressed Out About That Debate

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      Hosting a live “Daily Show” after the Biden-Trump spectacle, Stewart said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Jon Stewart went live hosting “The Daily Show” on Thursday, recapping the debate between President Biden and Donald Trump. Stewart wasn’t in the best of spirits.Things started out strong: “Both men are ambulatory. They are both upright. Level one cleared,” Stewart joked over a clip of the candidates taking the stage. But it wasn’t long before the host said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”One rambling Biden answer — ending with the non sequitur “We finally beat Medicare” — had Stewart staring into the camera in horror.“OK, a high-pressure situation. A lot of times, you can confuse saving Medicare with beating it. I’m sure it’s not something that repeated throughout the debate, causing Democrats across the country to either jump out of windows or vomit silently into the nearest recycling bin. Anybody can [expletive] up talking.” — JON STEWART“I’m not a political expert, but while Biden was preparing at Camp David — for a week — did anyone mention he would also be on camera?” — JON STEWART“A lot of people have resting 25th Amendment face.” — JON STEWARTStewart also called out Trump for his many falsehoods.“Just so we’re all clear, everything that Donald Trump said in that clip is a lie,” he said after one montage. “Blatant and full. And we were tight on time putting this [expletive] together. There’s plenty more. Really makes you wonder: What’s R.F.K. Jr. doing tonight?”“Let me just say after watching tonight’s debate, both of these men should be using performance-enhancing drugs, as much of it as they can get, as many times a day as their bodies will allow. If performance-enhancing drugs will improve their lucidity, their ability to solve problems, and in one of the candidate’s cases, improve their truthfulness, morality and malignant narcissism, then suppository away.” — JON STEWART More

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      in Movies

      Trump Biopic ‘The Apprentice’ Nears Distribution Deal

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      “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump, has faced fierce criticism from the former president and his allies.Hollywood executives love to characterize themselves as fearless. The truth is that they spend most of their time trying to minimize risk.It’s why theaters are clogged with vacuous sequels. It’s why so many Hollywood power players hide behind P.R. people. And it’s why all of the big movie studios and streaming services — and, in fact, most indie film companies — declined to distribute “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump that the former president has called “malicious defamation” and showered with cease-and-desist letters.But the movie business still has at least one wildcatter: Tom Ortenberg.Mr. Ortenberg, 63, and his Briarcliff Entertainment are pushing to complete a deal to acquire “The Apprentice” for wide release in theaters in the United States in September or early October — close enough to the presidential election to bask in its heat, but far enough away to avoid final-stretch media overload. Briarcliff’s pursuit of the $16 million film was confirmed by five people involved with the sale process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private negotiation.“Tom’s got more courage than most people in Hollywood combined,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school. “His interest in this kind of movie involves business, of course. He sees money to be made by leveraging millions of dollars in free publicity. But part of it is wanting to do his bit. He’s liberal and cares about social issues.”Hurdles remain, the people cautioned. “Apprentice” producers cobbled together the money to make the movie from various sources. One was Kinematics, an upstart film company backed by Dan Snyder, the former Washington Commanders owner — and a Trump supporter. Kinematics, which invested about $5 million, would need to sign off on the Briarcliff deal and has balked, calling the offer subpar, according to the five people involved in the sale process. The Kinematics snag was reported earlier by a Puck newsletter.So producers have put together a package to buy out Kinematics at a premium. The sides are now haggling over terms, including the timing of payment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Age and the Image of Capacity

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      “Watch me,” President Biden likes to say when he’s asked — he’s asked a lot, these days — whether he is too old to serve a second term. He is getting his wish.For the first three years of his administration, in contrast to the last president’s chaotic omnipresence, Mr. Biden kept himself scarce. Now his smallest appearance brings with it a thousand remote diagnoses from armchair gerontologists. A major speech, like his State of the Union address in March, is assessed not for its policy but its fluidity as spoken-word performance. A minor gaffe, like bungling a single sentence at a Philadelphia rally in April, is dissected as possible evidence of decline.At a campaign rally in April, President Biden fumbled during his speech, urging Americans to choose “freedom over democracy.”He is facing an image problem that time exacts on everyone. Now the first presidential debate of 2024 is happening months earlier than usual, in part because the Biden campaign wants to overcome a mounting concern that the president, at 81, is not up to four additional years of service. “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre” — or so Philip Roth’s “Everyman” howled in 2006. Electorally, this year, it might be both.The president is indeed rather old, older than anyone who has held the office. When he first won his Senate seat in 1972, the current leaders of Britain, France and Italy were not yet born. If Mr. Biden serves a full second term, he will retire to Delaware at 86. Already, after three-and-a-half years in a job that superannuates everyone, he appears a different man from the days of the Covid campaign, his hair thinner, his gait tighter. His age may be nothing but a number. But the perception of his age has become desperately entangled with cultural connotations of elderliness, formed over centuries, handed down to us through religion and literature and art.His predecessor and rival is also old, and also has trouble speaking clearly. But the same polls that have Mr. Biden trailing the 78-year-old Donald J. Trump, even after the latter’s conviction on 34 felony counts, show too that only one of these men is facing such widespread anxieties about the way of all flesh. The principal roadblock to the incumbent’s re-election, the polls keep telling us, is not policy. Younger Democrats, to his left and right, outpace him down-ballot.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On Live TV, a Historic Verdict Felt Both Enormous and Small

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      Donald Trump’s convictions made for a stunning moment of history, followed by hours of politics talk.Through most of the milestones of Donald J. Trump’s public life, he has managed to be in the center of the camera’s eye: Hosting 14 seasons of “The Apprentice”; running for and winning the presidency; firing up a crowd before the assault on the Capitol of Jan. 6, 2021; presumptively winning the Republican nomination for a second term.But on Thursday, as he became the first former president to be convicted of multiple felonies, he was offstage.Because video cameras were not allowed in the Manhattan courtroom where Mr. Trump was tried, this breathtaking turn in American history, like the entire run of the trial, was read to us by TV anchors, as if off a Teletype machine.When word broke that the jury had reached a verdict in the hush-money case late Thursday afternoon, the networks broke into coverage. And waited. There was that special, spring-loaded tension of the media apparatus readying to deliver big news after days of vamping.“Count 1 is guilty,” Jake Tapper declared on CNN, letting the last word land, then reading out the next 33 individually for several minutes. On NBC, Laura Jarrett read at a brisk clip as the numbers raced upward in the “GUILTY” column of the network’s scoreboard-like graphic. ABC conveyed the scope of the convictions with a crowded graphic that listed each count with “GUILTY” in a red rectangle, like a departures board at an airport.Americans have become used to seeing dramatic verdicts as they land in the courtroom, hearing from the jury and court officers, watching the defendants’ reactions. This time, it was up to the on-screen graphics to capture the moment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Colin Jost Falls Flat at White House Correspondents Dinner

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      The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has occasionally featured some great stand-up comedy. This “S.N.L.” veteran’s set will not join that list.People in the media have long worried about the impact of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on journalism. The concern is that it makes the press look too chummy with politicians it’s covering. But what is the impact on comedy?A high-ceilinged hotel ballroom filled with television anchors and network executives is a tough room for stand-up, but no more so than an awards show. Trevor Noah was funnier two years ago at the dinner than he was at this year’s Grammys.A murderer’s row of comics, among them Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Wanda Sykes, has taken this assignment because it’s one of the most high-profile live comedy sets of the year. And there has been one truly great performance (Stephen Colbert), some very good ones (Seth Meyers, Larry Wilmore) and one so thrillingly biting (Michelle Wolf) that the next year they replaced the comic with a historian.Colin Jost’s set this year does not belong in that pantheon. Without his Weekend Update partner Michael Che next to him, he came off muted, vanilla, less assured than usual. With long pauses between jokes, eyes darting side to side, he occasionally took a drink of water and at least once acknowledged the lack of laughter in the room. His jokes leaned on wordplay more than a specific or novel perspective. “Some incredible news organizations here,” began one of his pricklier jokes, finished by: “Also, some credible ones.”He focused much fire on former President Donald J. Trump. “Now that O.J.’s dead, who is the front-runner for V.P.?” he asked. “Diddy?” Like Biden, Jost has always benefited from low expectations. No one that handsome could be funny, right? But he has grown into his role at “Saturday Night Live,” proving to be an especially strong straight man adept at the comedy of embarrassment. You could see his timing in one of the odder moments when he said Robert Kennedy Jr. could be the third Catholic president and the C-SPAN camera cut to President Biden (the second) clapping. Jost retreated on Kennedy’s chances one beat later: “Like his vaccine card says, he doesn’t have a shot.”For the third year in a row, President’s Biden’s age played a big role in the comedy (“Technology wasn’t invented when he was in high school,” Jost said of Biden), even in the president’s own set. Two years ago, Biden joked that he was friends with Calvin Coolidge. Last year, he referred to his “pal Jimmy Madison.” The president took a slightly different and more confrontational approach this time. “Age is an issue,” he said early. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite

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      Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.A rising star of the current season is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for President Trump who is now a co-host of ABC’s “The View” and a regular commentator on CNN.Ms. Farah Griffin, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, garnered wide attention with a tweet she posted on Jan. 6, 2021: “Dear MAGA — I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”Three years later, Ms. Farah Griffin, 34, spends many of her nights at the CNN headquarters in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan, bantering with Van Jones, David Axelrod and other liberal commentators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Tries to Turn the Tables on Trump: ‘He’s About as Old as I Am’

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      In his first election-year appearance on a late-night television show, the president joshed with Seth Meyers and poked at former President Donald J. Trump’s own memory lapses.President Biden has come up with a new defense against claims that he is too old to run for another term: At least he knows who his wife is — as opposed to “the other guy.”As he expands his efforts to reassure voters that he is fit for another four years, Mr. Biden took a turn on the talk show circuit, using an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC to poke his challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, on his own struggles with memory.In a playful but pointed interview aired early Tuesday morning, Mr. Meyers sought to help the president address the age issue, which polls show is an important drawback in the minds of most voters. Mr. Meyers jokingly told the president that he had obtained classified information indicating that “you are currently 81 years old.”Mr. Biden went along with the joke. “Who the hell told you that?” he asked. “That’s classified!”He then went on to jab Mr. Trump, who is 77, over a video in which he seems to call his wife, Melania Trump, by another name. “You got to take a look at the other guy,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name.”Turning more serious, Mr. Biden added that the contest is not about how old the candidates are. “It’s about how old your ideas are,” he said. “Look, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are — 50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.”The president has been on the defensive about his memory in recent weeks, particularly since a special counsel, in a report on Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents, explained that one reason he would not charge Mr. Biden is because he would come across to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” During his interview with the special counsel, the report said, Mr. Biden could not remember key dates of his vice presidency or the year his son Beau died. Mr. Biden’s defenders assailed the special counsel for mentioning that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Biden Accuser Was Discredited. Right-Wing Media Is Undeterred.

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      Revelations that Alexander Smirnov, an F.B.I. informant, was a serial fabulist were downplayed on air and online by those who continued to insist the president should be impeached.On Tuesday, a few hours after the credibility of a key source boosting Republican efforts to impeach President Biden collapsed in spectacular fashion, the Fox News host Jesse Watters offered his viewers a reassuring message.“It’s a smear job,” Mr. Watters said.He was referring to the Justice Department’s revelation that Alexander Smirnov, an F.B.I. informant who had accused Mr. Biden and his son Hunter of an elaborate bribery scheme involving Ukraine, was in fact a serial liar who could not be trusted. In a court filing, federal prosecutors said Mr. Smirnov had spread misinformation and was “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials.”Because Mr. Smirnov’s claims were frequently cited by congressional Republicans in their now-stalled attempt to unseat Mr. Biden from office, Democrats argued that the impeachment effort had reached a logical conclusion. “He is lying, and it should be dropped and it’s just been an outrageous effort from the beginning,” the president said last week.But the conservative media world reacted with a different, and sharply defiant, narrative. In this worldview, news of Mr. Smirnov’s deceptions was merely part of a conspiracy to protect Mr. Biden at all costs.“They say he has ties to Russian intelligence; where did they get that from?” Mr. Watters told his prime-time audience, noting that Mr. Smirnov had previously been considered credible by the F.B.I. “They just gave the media and the Democrats permission to call the Ukraine bribes and the Biden impeachment ‘Russian disinformation’ for the rest of the year.”Miranda Devine, a columnist for The New York Post, dismissed Mr. Smirnov as a “straw man” and said the evidence against Mr. Biden remained “overwhelming.” Maria Bartiromo, on Fox Business, described the Justice Department’s filing as “an intimidation tactic” and accused the government of “taking this guy down.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More