Stephen Colbert grills Elizabeth Warren on billionaires, Trump, South Carolina cuisine
“I can see myself having a beer with him/her,” is such a played out campaign cliché that Lin Manuel Miranda even speculates that such faux populist politicking was around to help out Aaron Burr. But dammit if Massachusetts Senator and person spectral hate-mannequin Anne Coulter apparently thinks is too darned full of specific plans to be President Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) didn’t charm the trousers and natty bow tie off of Stephen Colbert over a frosty Michelob Ultra on Wednesday’s Late Show. Hosting the Democratic candidate at a pub on his home turf of Charleston, South Carolina, Colbert first introduced secret chow-hound Warren to some of SC’s local delicacies. (Oysters, bourbon, ribs, the baffling phenomena of boiling peanuts before you eat them.) Over their meal, Colbert peppered the conversation with a few questions about the Senator’s indefatigable push to oust fellow fast food aficionado Donald Trump from the White House, eliciting Warren’s quick delineation of the ways she’s different from Trump, despite their love of the occasional Whopper. (“I read books and I care about people,” Warren noted nimbly between bites.)
As for that need to get a would-be white supremacist dictator out of office, Warren was adamant that her Democratic Party can’t afford to screw things up, 2016-style, pleading with Democratic and other not-ignorant and racist voters to put aside their partisanship once the nominee is finally chosen. She also played along with Colbert on a “guess the billionaire” game (only a fictional plutocratic duck stumped her), and gamely wrestled with her dining companion as he—essaying the role of one such billionaire greedily hoarding all his ribs—attempted to snatch the mere scrap of meat Warren said represented how much rib it would take to give everyone in America universal healthcare. (One assumes Warren’s security detail was briefed on the horseplay beforehand, since Colbert didn’t wind up with taser burns.) Moving down to the bar for an after-feast cocktail, Colbert first made fun of Warren’s call for that Michelob Ultra, but eventually joined in as Warren high-fived some supporters. Demonstrating that—yes, dammit—she does look like she’d be fun to grab a beer with, Warren admitted that her beer of choice is a little like club soda with a dash of alcohol, and busted out laughing when Colbert told her the old one about certain American beers being like making love in a canoe. Warren even ended things with a callback, showing that, even with a belly full of boiled peanuts and bad beer, she’s quick on her feet.