Leftist comedian Larry Wilmore, who is black, said in an interview with Bill Maher that Joe Biden’s recent address at a historically black college was “condescending.”
Biden addressed the 2024 graduates of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, last month. He asked the graduates, “What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?”
In the conversation between Wilmore and Maher, the two compared Biden’s address to one delivered by former president Barack Obama at the same college in 2013. Maher called the differences between the two presidents “night and day.”
“Obama’s was all about [how] so many doors have been broken down, you have so many good reasons to hope, and no more excuses,” Maher said. “And it went over way better.”
Maher explained that Obama’s address emboldened graduates, while Biden’s rhetoric was far more defeatist.
“Instead of forcing you to prove you’re ten times better,” Biden said. “We’re breaking down doors so you have a hundred times more opportunities.”
Of Biden’s speech, Wilmore said, “It’s condescending.”
“Condescending, yes,” echoed Maher.
In the address, Biden continued his depressing tone when he said to graduates, “And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”
Maher added, “But Biden’s [speech] was just so, like I thought 2000-late,” Maher said.
Wilmore also brought up Biden’s comments to Charlamagne tha God that sparked controversy during the 2020 election cycle.
“It’s not half as obnoxious as when Biden told Charlamagne,” Maher said, to which Wilmore interjected, “‘If you ain’t black.'”
