Those who have endorsed Hillary Clinton have cited her political experience, preparedness, toughness, and the fact that she’s not Donald Trump, as the main reasons why she should be president of the United States. Louis C.K., however, has a different argument: She’s a mother.
During his appearance on Conan last night, the comedian offered an enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton, arguing that it’s high time that a mother, instead of yet another father, assumed the highest office in the country.
“It’s not about the first woman,” he said, “it’s about the first mom.”
“We’ve had 240 years of fathers,” he said. “Father after father. Bald father, fat father, every kind of father.”
“A mother—she’s got it,” he continued. “A mother just does it. She feeds you and teaches you. She protects you. She takes care of shit.”
In C.K.’s analogy, the American people are children, and the president is their parent. He asserted that even the best fathers can handle only 40% of a child’s needs. Meanwhile, mothers “who don’t even try,” he said, can still cover upwards of “200%” of their children’s needs.
The comedian also fought back against the notion that Clinton is merely the least unpleasant of the options for president. ”It’s not a lesser of two evils,” he said. “I think she’s great. I’d take her over anybody.”
While C.K.’s endorsement of Clinton was more pro-Clinton than it was anti-Trump, the comedian still sharply criticized the Republican candidate’s inability to accept criticism.
“Every time he’s criticized, everything stops, and he makes everybody pay,” C.K. said. “That’s not how it works. We need somebody who can take abuse. Hillary Clinton can take abuse.”
C.K. and other comedians have publicly denounced Trump several times this year. In a March email to subscribers to his web TV series Horace and Pete, C.K. urged his fans not to vote for Trump. “[Trump] is the worst of all of us,” he wrote. “He’s a symptom to a problem that is very real. But don’t vote for your own cancer. You’re better than that.”