{"id":593257,"date":"2026-04-19T07:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T07:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/593257\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T07:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T07:49:09","slug":"obama-biden-bush-clinton-snl-stars-nicole-kidman-garth-brooks-at-philadelphia-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/593257\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama, Biden, Bush, Clinton, SNL Stars, Nicole Kidman, Garth Brooks At Philadelphia Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe nation\u2019s four former presidents, Joe Biden, Barack Obama<\/a>, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and assorted celebs took the stage at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia Saturday for History Talks<\/a>, an event honoring the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary spotlighting democracy, social justice, healing division and political satire.<\/p>\n

\n\tA+E Global Media<\/a>\u2018s History Channel<\/a> partnered with Philly-based media giant Comcast for the gathering that also saw Doris Kearns Goodwin interview Michelle Obama and Hoda Kotb sit down with Nicole Kidman<\/a>. Colin Jost and former SNL<\/a> cast mate Kate McKinnon stepped up just after a Bill and Hillary Clinton convo with Ted Danson. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s one segment that seems a little out of place in this lineup,\u201d Jost joked. \u201cWhat are we doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut political satire has long been a staple of NBC\u2019s late night juggernaut. McKinnon recalled her first political impression, as Mitt Romney\u2019s wife. \u201cAnd the feeling I got doing it, the response from the audience, was like a level above just regular comedy. It was sort of, \u2018We\u2019re in this together, and we\u2019re all thinking the same thing, and we\u2019re talking about it together.\u2019 The level of engagement with the audience was just a cut above, and so I really got addicted to doing political satire specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe\u2019s done Hillary Clinton, Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, Sean Spicer, Jeff Sessions, Angela Merkel, Elizabeth Warren, and lots more. Jost just had his first outing, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. \u201cI\u2019m probably 200 behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcKinnon said she does think about people\u2019s feelings \u201ceven when I disagree politically with the person I\u2019m doing the impression of. Do you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, I just think of them as, like, sacks of meat. I don\u2019t care. No one\u2019s really human to me,\u201d Jost quipped, adding quickly, \u201cNo. I do too. I\u2019m not, we\u2019re not, mean people \u2026 There\u2019s a Kurt Vonnegut line that I really love, he talks about how, when you get to the gates of heaven, a great excuse is to say I never asked to be born. I always think about that \u2026 We have to give people a lot of leeway because no one asked to be born, and also no one asked to be born into lots of different circumstances that people are born into. And I think we have to recognize that in other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTina Fey (who hails from the Philly burbs \u2014 and was an iconic Sarah Palin) spoke earlier and said the relationship between SNL and current events shaped her growing up. \u201cYou know, from Chevy Chase playing Gerald Ford, seeing that as a kid, I knew it was funny, I didn\u2019t know exactly why.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKidman described developing her career, moving between acting and producing, and the importance of supporting women in Hollywood. Female directors have come a long way but there\u2019s \u201cstill an enormous gap. I think we are still looking at, in terms of female directors, 14%, maybe it\u2019s 16% now. I think it\u2019s good to say those numbers because people think it\u2019s all fine now. No.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, \u201cAs we are talking about helping women and female voices to be heard in this industry, wouldn\u2019t it be lovely, in our lifetime, to be able to see a female president?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe former Presidents, and First Ladies, were the core of the event.<\/p>\n

\n\tPresident Obama stressed the importance of the Constitution, and an inclusive America. \u201cThere\u2019s been this continuing contest throughout our history around those who would try to interpret those original documents as being able to accommodate caste and hierarchy and privilege and preferences and exclude, versus an idea that says, no, no, we the people means we the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Obama Presidential Center, a 20-acre campus with a museum, public library, conference center, and park will open in Chicago in June.<\/p>\n

\n\tMichelle Obama said audio is a focus for the Obama\u2019s production company Higher Ground. She has a podcast and is supporting a group of young podcasters \u2014 a bunch of great kids with their own shows, in their 20s and 30s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tToday show host Jenna Busch Hager interviewed her dad, President George W. Bush. Jason Kelce chatted with Tom Brady.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was the fourth installment of History Talks, developed by A+E Global Media\u2019s President and Chairman Paul Buccieri. The events bring together diverse political and cultural leaders, but gathering four former presidents is unique. The confab does not invite sitting presidents and seeks to be politically agnostic.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat proved difficult and while it wasn\u2019t particularly hardball there were some strong feelings evident.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe number one question facing us today,\u201d said Bill Clinton, \u201cis, do we believe, on our 250th anniversary, are we willing to stake our lives fortunes and honor, on the fact that we are all created equal and that our diversity is a blessing a not a curse?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are living through challenging times,\u201d added Hillary Clinton. \u201cThere is no doubt in my mind that we\u2019ll get through it, but it\u2019s one that is posing a lot of new questions about power, about unaccountable power, and some very old questions about how we organize ourselves and whether we stay faithful to ur founding values and the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGarth Brooks<\/a> called music a unifier \u2014 \u201cmusic is love.\u201d He closed the event with a plea to safeguard democracy. \u201cDemocracy is this gorgeous, gorgeous word that most of the world only dreams about. We live it. We must to anything and everything to preserve democracy\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nation\u2019s four former presidents, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and assorted celebs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[258724,8833,88,110887,32575,258597,7689,12016],"class_list":{"0":"post-593257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ae-global-media","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-garth-brooks","12":"tag-history-channel","13":"tag-history-talks","14":"tag-nicole-kidman","15":"tag-snl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}