Amid the forced frivolity of Tuesday's Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore came a moment of awkward silence worth savoring when the host dared utter the unthinkable.
It was during a discussion between Wilmore and guest comedian Lewis Black, along with Nightly Show executive producer and Daily Show alum Rory Albanese and Franchesca Ramsey in her first appearance as a Nightly Show contributor.
The conversation centered around the Republican caucuses in Iowa and Senator Marco Rubio's unexpectedly strong third-place finish --
WILMORE: Do you see Rubio really making a move right now? That was a pretty strong third. He almost beat Trump. Who do you see winning if it's Rubio against Hillary, who wins that?
BLACK (after deathly silence on the set): Wow ...
WILMORE: I think Rubio has a huge chance of upsetting somebody like Hillary.BLACK (temporarily tongue-tied): If, if he was, if (drops his head forward in mock despair).
WILMORE (attempts damage control after having passed wind in church): Everybody got sad!
RAMSEY: I don't like that scenario!
ALBANESE (initially spouting gibberish) : You know what scenario made it, made me realize, we're going to have, it's that, that's like, we're going to have to make a choice, it's just like ahhh, ohhh, ahhh, ohhh (sticks out tongue in mock disgust).WILMORE: Does Rubio beat Sanders? Does he beat Bernie Sanders?
ALBANESE: Uh, you know, I don't know. Here's the thing, I would, a year ago we had this conversation, I would have been just said, all right, it's gonna be Jeb and Hillary, big money ...WILMORE (reminding all of his penchant for prognostication): I said, I said Rubio in October.
ALBANESE: ... yeah, and big money always wins and I was like, very much like, oh it's a shoo-in, Hillary's gotta win it 'cause they promised it to her in '08. I, I have now started to believe that the system actually kinda works, I don't know why. It's like, it seems like people can be president who don't have a chance a year ago, right?
BLACK: But the other thing with him (Rubio) is, absolutely, we're watching, we're going to watch on-the-job training.
WILMORE: Yeah.
BLACK (waves arms in exasperation): And I, I just can't do this again. (tepid laughter from audience following realization that Black was referring to Dear Leader). I mean, I mean, part of (crosstalk) Barack Obama, well I mean, part of the problem was his on-the-job training!
WILMORE: But come on, man ...
BLACK: I know the other side of this. I know the other side of this!
WILMORE: No, no, no! No, you don't! No, you don't know the other side of it!BLACK (even more emphatically): I know!
WILMORE: No, brothers never get in there! (Or on late night television!) Of course a brother has to get in there, a brother has to learn everything about that because no other brother had a chance to be in there! Of course it was on the job!
BLACK: Yeah but it was still, it was still, it was absolutely that! And that was, you know, but also it was dealing with, you know, it's the same position of a guy who's in the Senate who hasn't been in the Senate long enough.
We can't elect Rubio -- he's too much like Obama!
In case it's Clinton who wins in November, expect to hear plenty of future apologia about her need for on-the-job training as the first "sister" in the White House.
