Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared on a late-night talk show for the first time as a 2020 candidate on Wednesday, using the opportunity to poke fun at — and dismiss criticism of — his penchant for verbal stumbles.
In an interview on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Mr. Biden also drew a contrast between his slip-ups and actions undertaken by the Trump administration.
“Any gaffe that I have made — and I’ve made gaffes like every politician I know has — have been not about the substance,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Colbert.
“I don’t get wrong things like, you know, we should lock kids up in cages at the border,” Mr. Biden added later, referring to migrant children who were separated from their families at the southern border under the Trump administration.
Mr. Biden was also happy to lean in to the show’s lighter moments. After Mr. Colbert asked whether his occasional misstatements suggested he was “going nuts,” Mr. Biden went with the joke.
“The reason I came on the Jimmy Kimmel show was because I’m not,” Mr. Biden said, pretending to mistake Mr. Colbert for another late-night television host.
Mr. Biden’s remarks reinforced an argument he has made recently, that misstating details on the campaign trail is in a different league than making bad choices while governing. “The details are irrelevant in terms of decision-making,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with NPR this week.
Mr. Colbert’s “Late Show” has been welcoming territory for Mr. Biden before.
In September 2015, Mr. Colbert encouraged Mr. Biden to seek the presidency during an interview that Mr. Colbert credits in part with helping his show take off.
In that interview, Mr. Biden suggested that he wasn’t emotionally ready to pursue a run after the death that year of his son, Beau, from brain cancer. It was an emotional and memorable interview about grappling with grief and loss — a theme that, four years later, is a defining element of how Mr. Biden connects on the campaign trail as a presidential candidate.
“You have suffered, and yet through your suffering you seem to have made some beautiful things in your life,” Mr. Colbert told him then, asking Mr. Biden about the lessons he would share with others who struggle with loss.
“I marvel at the ability of people to absorb hurt and just get back up,” Mr. Biden said.
At his campaign events, Mr. Biden frequently draws voters who say they aren’t especially enthusiastic about his campaign vision, but rather are focused on his perceived viability in a general election. He also routinely attracts voters who wait in line to talk with him about their own struggles with illness — especially with cancer — and their personal losses.
Mr. Biden did a sit-down interview this summer with Anderson Cooper of CNN, where the subject of grief again came up in a personal way, as Mr. Biden noted the death of Mr. Cooper’s brother as they discussed his message to family members of gun violence victims.
During Wednesday’s new interview, Mr. Biden quipped that he had decided to run for president because Mr. Colbert had told him to. “It’s your fault,” he said.
But pressed on what made him sure about his decision, Mr. Biden again pointed to the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 — and President Trump’s reaction to it.
“I really do believe that we’re in a place we haven’t been in a long, long time, and the president’s taken us there,” Mr. Biden said. “We have to restore the soul of this country.”
Mr. Colbert also could not help but ask Mr. Biden about his plans for his former boss: Would Mr. Biden appoint Barack Obama to the Supreme Court?
“I don’t think he’d do it,” Mr. Biden said, before adding, “He’s fully qualified.”
Mr. Colbert has also interviewed several of Mr. Biden’s rivals this year, including Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
And to the extent that Mr. Biden has largely skipped the late-night circuit so far, jokes about him have been a fixture from television personalities including Mr. Colbert, who have focused on everything from his uncertain debate performances to his efforts to take on Mr. Trump.
“Old men fight! Old men fight! Old men fight!” said Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” after highlighting a back-and-forth between Mr. Biden, 76, and Mr. Trump, who is now 73. “This would be hilarious. These two dudes fighting? It’s like, ‘let’s get ready to stumble.’”