President Clinton signed a $10 million deal to write a book by 2003. Isn’t that amazing? Yes, and get this, not only that, President Bush signed a $10 million deal to read a book by 2003.

In this late-night monologue-style joke, O’Brien contrasts two presidents by riffing on the publishing-industry headline that Bill Clinton received a lucrative book deal. The punchline turns on a stereotype frequently aimed at George W. Bush in the early 2000s: that he was incurious or not especially bookish. By exaggerating the parallel—Bush supposedly being paid not to write but merely to read—O’Brien satirizes celebrity politics and the commodification of presidential memoirs while also delivering a partisan-tinged jab at perceived intellectual shortcomings. The humor depends on incongruity (a “deal” for reading) and on the audience’s familiarity with contemporary political caricatures.