Seth Meyers on Why Joe Biden Was His Second-Ever Late Night Guest (and Not His First)

You would think that if you had a brand new talk show and Joe Biden was going to be on back in 2014 while he was Vice President, he would of course be the first guest. That was not the case on Late Night with Seth Meyers, though, and he explained why on Monday night.

"It was very important to me that Amy Poehler was our first guest, because I really did not believe then and do not believe now that I would ever have this job if it wasn't for her," he said of his former Weekend Update partner from Saturday Night Live. "Which meant we had to ask the then-Vice President of the United States if he would be the second guest on a show that started — and continues to start — at 12:35 in the morning, and he said, with no hesitation, that it would be an honor to follow the great Amy Poehler. And I think that he said that for two reasons. One, he is, at his core, a decent human being, and two, he knew that if we asked Amy to go second, it would be a whole thing."

Meyers also revealed that Biden, knowing his love of trains, brought him both an Amtrak conductor's hat and a train whistle, the latter of which has come to mean a lot to him. "Now, I have two young boys, and the last thing I do before I come out here is I FaceTime them, because by the time the show is over and I get home, they're asleep, and this is in my dressing room, and the last thing I do when I say goodnight to my boys every evening is I blow this train whistle."

"So every day that I look at it, I think about Joe Biden," he concluded. "And I also think about Donald Trump, because these last four years have totally blown."

Watch Joe Biden on the first-ever episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers from back on February 24, 2014 right here:

People are talking about Late Night with Seth Meyers in our forums. Join the conversation.

Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.