The following is the opening satirical monologue from “The Andrew Klavan Show.”

President and venal houseplant Joe Biden met with make-believe-president-but-really-murderous-dictator Xi Jinping this week in an effort to improve relations between China and the part of China that used to be the United States.

Before the meeting, Houseplant Biden told reporters he planned to ask Dictator Xi some hard questions, like, “What is the capital of Indonesia?” and “How do you get the fortune inside the cookie without breaking the cookie? Or do you roll the fortune into the raw dough? But then why doesn’t the fortune catch fire when you cook the dough? And is it really a fortune if it doesn’t tell the future? And if it does tell the future, how do Chinese people know what the future is?” Also, “What does moo goo gai pan mean?” Biden said if Xi could answer any four of these questions correctly, he would win the Risk home game, so he could play at taking over the world as a relaxing break from taking over the world.

President Xi said he would be asking tough questions of President Biden as well, like “What’s that behind you?” Then, when Biden turned around to look, he would steal his watch.

The meeting between Xi and Biden lasted three hours, although that included Biden’s two hour nap, during which Xi had a listening device surgically implanted in one of the president’s liver spots so he could record Biden’s conversations in the Oval Office, and play the results on Chinese TV as a hilarious situation comedy entitled, “Tsi Tai Pao,” which roughly translates as “silly old man says meaningless things to administration underlings who nod with serious looks on their faces and then run the country however they want while media lickspittles pretend everything’s fine, after which the price of gas goes up another dollar.” The show will be aired Tuesdays at 8PM, followed by old reruns of “Three’s Company,” or as it’s called in Chinese, Tsi Tai Pao.

After the meeting, President Biden strode confidently from the conference room into a broom closet where he addressed a collection of mops he mistook for American journalists, until they reported the story accurately whereupon he realized they must’ve been somebody else.

Biden said [quote] “You know, it’s only when you look in a man’s eyes and speak to him directly that you can start to understand his point of view. For instance, I always thought torturing Uighurs was a bad thing, but now that I’ve had a chance to discuss it with President Xi, the next time I meet a Uighur, well, watch out. I also had a chance to ask the president for assurances that he would not invade Taiwan, and he guaranteed me he would no more invade Taiwan than he would implant a listening device in one of my liver spots. Plus he says he’ll continue to send TikTok to America to convince gullible young girls to cut off their breasts and confused boys to have themselves castrated — so we’re both on the same page there. All in all, I was glad to extend the hand of friendship to President Xi though I do wonder what the hell happened to my watch.” [unquote]

Meanwhile, as the Secret Service debated whether to get President Biden out of the broom closet or just leave him there where he’d be safe, President-Not-to-Mention-Murderous-Dictator-for-Life Xi addressed a group of American journalists whom he mistook for mops, until they swabbed the floor with soapy water and then squeezed the dirt out into a bucket, whereupon he realized they were actually American journalists.

Xi said, [quote] “It was a great honor to sit down for a talk with your blithering idiot. Future Vassal Biden had many things to say and I look forward to having them translated into English so I can understand them. Clearly, you have wisely elected a man we Chinese can work with, given that our work is to destroy your economy, enslave your people, and invade your Chinese restaurants so we can find out what the hell Moo Goo Gai Pan is. I was also pleased to be able to present the President with the most sacred symbol of Chinese friendship, a highly communicable respiratory infection. We all very much look forward to hearing more from President Biden Tuesdays at 8PM, followed by reruns of ‘Three’s Company.’” [unquote]

Xi said he hoped the leaders could build on the progress of this first meeting, and then meet next time on Chinese soil, assuming Biden can find his way to Taiwan.

Andrew Klavan Is the host of The Andrew Klavan Show at The Daily Wire. A popular political satirist and Hollywood screenwriter, Klavan is also an award-winning novelist. Be sure to order his new novel today: A Strange Habit of Mind, book two in the Cameron Winter Mystery series.

The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Mike Rowe told Fox News this weekend that men are becoming soft and lazy in part due to how much time they are spending on screens instead of working.

Rowe made the remarks during a brief interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson during the network’s “Patriot Awards.”

“So, I’m wrong about as much as I am right. And it’s for that reason, I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ out loud, ever,” Rowe said. “But for 15 years, my foundation has been talking about this slow, sort of, unraveling of what we loosely call work ethic, whatever that means.”

“And I mean, last week, there was an article in The New York Times called something like how to combat the assault on modern work, and I thought it was gonna be an article about coal miners or crab fishermen or, you know, big tough jobs where the danger is real. It wasn’t. It was an article about everything from paper cuts to the non-existent pet bereavement policies that are being deemed harsh, I’m not making it up,” he continued. “And so we are, we’re in a place where 7 million able-bodied men are not only not working between the ages of 25 and [inaudible]. 7 million able-bodied men are not only not working, they’re affirmatively not looking for a job. That’s never happened in peacetime, ever.”

Rowe said that people are focusing on the wrong thing by looking at the unemployment rate when they should be looking at the number of able-bodied people who do not want to work.

Rowe said that an economist he spoke to told him the thing that those men are doing is spending “on average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens.”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Well, not a lot of people are working right now in the United States. And that’s a big change. That’s why maybe you have to use the drive thru because no one’s inside the restaurant. But not only is the way we work changing, our attitudes toward work are changing, and a lot of people seem to have contempt for work all of the sudden, signs are everywhere, you probably noticed them. Mike Rowe has spent a life thinking about work. He’s host of ‘How America Works’ on Fox Business Network. He joins us on the set of the Patriot Awards, of course, for a long time, the immortal host of “Dirty Jobs,” and I think our most frequent and popular guest. Anyway, thank you so much for coming back. Obviously you have noticed the change in attitude toward work, some people sort of mocking the idea of work, what’s your response to that?

MIKE ROWE: Yes. So, I’m wrong about as much as I am right. And it’s for that reason, I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ out loud, ever. But for 15 years, my foundation has been talking about this slow sort of unraveling of what we loosely call work ethic, whatever that means. And now between Nick Eberstadt’s work, an economist who’s really drilled down on it. And I mean, last week, there was an article in The New York Times called something like how to combat the assault on modern work, and I thought it was gonna be an article about coal miners or crab fishermen or, you know, big tough jobs where the danger is real. It wasn’t. It was an article about everything from paper cuts to the non existent pet bereavement policies that are being deemed harsh, I’m not making it up. And so we are, we’re in a place where 7 million able bodied men are not only not working between the ages of 25 and [inaudible]. 7 million able bodied men are not only not working, they’re affirmatively not looking for a job. That’s never happened in peacetime, ever. And economists like Nick Eberstadt take a dim view of it, they’re worried. And they’re trying to inject that into the conversation at a time when we’re still looking at the unemployment number as the true harbinger of what’s really going on, but it’s not. In his view, it’s a depression era artifact, we’re just looking at the wrong thing, we’re looking at not what it means to have a bunch of people unemployed, but what does it mean, to have a bunch of opportunity that nobody gives a damn about? That’s a different conversation. And it’s complicated to have, because while that dynamic is clear and present, so too, is the fact that a lot of big companies in Silicon Valley are going to lay off a lot of people. And now you’re gonna have a bunch of people who aren’t trained for the jobs that do exist, sort of competing with people who have affirmatively taken themselves out of the workforce entirely. And final point, I asked Nick, ‘what are they doing? What are they doing with their time, these able bodied men?  On average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens.

CARLSON: So they’re just totally hypnotized by a digital world? So at some point, the pilot shortage, for example, well known, one of the reasons it’s hard to get your plane on time or the cost is going up is because aren’t enough pilots. But that’s true for a lot of different jobs. So like, when does it start to grind to a halt?

ROWE: Well, you know, pilots get the press because it’s the pilot. But when you really follow the delays down, you’ll find it in the mechanics, you’ll find it in the flight attendants. How many airports have you been in when the crews simply couldn’t make it to the next plane? It’s because they’re working with 70% of the workforce they had three years ago. You know, 4 million fewer people are in the workforce today than before the lock downs and 4 million more jobs have opened up. It’s almost a perfect mirror image and the reflection is kind of hideous.

CARLSON: And it’s just sad because work is meaning as you have spent your life showing. Mike Rowe, the great Mike Rowe.

Related: Mike Rowe: Millions Not Looking For Work Because Of ‘Topography That Ultimately Encourages People To Not Work’