Monday, May 20, 2019

Joe Biden on "60 Interminable Minutes"


BYRON PITTS: Thanks for coming in, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN
: Glad to, Brad.  How’re Angelina, the kids?

PITTS
: Um, fine, sir.

BIDEN
: Hey, this interview’s on deep background, okay?

PITTS
: We’re live, Mr. Vice-President.
 
BIDEN: Whatever.  Hit me with your best shot.

PITTS
: Is our government broken?

BIDEN
: No, Bruce. The country’s in bad shape, yes, but the federal government hasn’t been this hale and hearty since I became a senator in ’73.

PITTS
: Would you list some accomplishments of the Obama administration?

BIDEN
: Sure.  One, under President Obama, Americans don’t hafta worry about the Black Plague; two, as we unilaterally decommission our nukes, we gain credibility with Putin, the Ayatollahs, and Kim Young-un.  Finally, our immigration policy guarantees everyone landscaping services at an affordable price.

PITTS
: Will the president use his “bully pulpit” to help ordinary citizens understand fossil fuels must be phased out ASAP?

BIDEN: Actually, Barry, he uses the bully pulpit to bully people.   As to your question: yes, we’ve had to federalize fuel stocks and set gasoline and home heating oil prices at unaffordable levels, but people need a kick in the pants if we’re gonna transition from two-ton gas guzzlers and oil furnaces to wind-powered runabouts and solar heating.

PITTS
: Do you lunch with the president once a week as did other vice presidents before you?

BIDEN
: Yeah, I do, Bob.  I mean, I don’t actually join him in the Residence, but I can eat in the White House Mess every Thursday, and the president’s a short walk away if he ever wants to see me.

PITTS
: How often is that?

BIDEN
: Next question.

PITTS: Hypothetical: Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear sites.  What does the president do?

BIDEN
: Won’t happen.  Contingency plans exist to take out Israel’s air force and Fox News headquarters if a strike appears imminent.  That’s classified info, Bret.  Can’t talk about it.  

PITTS: One more: we capture a Tea Partier with al Qaeda ties who’s still so upset over the GM bailout he’s planted a nuclear device somewhere in Washington.  Your advice to President Obama?

BIDEN
: First, I confirm they’ve saved me a spot in the White House Operations Bunker, which is situated 300 feet beneath the East Room and accessible by a secret elevator in the Residence.  The bunker’s a world-class panic room protected by 10 foot thick concrete/rebar walls and a coded 25 ton triple-tiered steel blast door.  Safest place on the planet.  Well, against a nuke maybe. But a terrorist could introduce some fine-powdered anthrax into the bunker if he accessed the heating vents outside the . . . .

PITTS
: Your advice to the president about the Tea Party jihadist, sir?

BIDEN: I said, “Look Boss, we gotta squeeze ‘im for info, but humanely, to keep the ACLU off our backs.  How?  Mortarboard the guy.”

PITTS
: Mortarboard?

BIDEN
: Teams of CIA religious scholars in full academic regalia lecturin’ him around the clock on the superiority of Shia Islam over Sunni Islam.   Until he breaks.
 

PITTS: If he doesn’t?

BIDEN: Then he gets nothin’ to drink but D.C. tap water, day in, day out, just D.C. tap water.  After three days, he’ll sing like a canary.

PITTS:
Waterboredom?  We’d go that far?

BIDEN
: It’s in the new interrogation manual Eric Holder ran by Iranian mullahs.  They signed off on it.

PITTS
: Our time’s running short, sir.  Any thoughts on helping the victims of Bush’s global recession, now in its seventh year. 

BIDEN:
Yeah.  Between you and me, next week the president’s gonna announce a new economic strategy we’re callin’ “The Splurge,” deployin’ an additional trillion dollars we don’t have to fight a futile worldwide War on Poverty.  Krugman of the Times wrote the book on redistribution of wealth. He’ll direct the effort.  

PITTS: We’d better stop here.  Thanks for your time, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN
: You got it, Brad.

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