Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has often talked about a fictional couple named Joe and Eileen Bailey during his political career. The Baileys are meant to represent average American voters.
Comedian John Oliver recently poked fun at Schumer for bringing them up so often, joking that his “imaginary friends” have “already broken up” with him.
Schumer describes the Baileys as Long Island residents and Reagan-era Republicans. Over the years, he has added many personal details about them — such as their love for Kung Pao chicken, Joe’s habit of singing the national anthem at Islanders hockey games, and more.
“The Baileys have guided Chuck Schumer’s political life — which is a little weird given they don’t exist,” Oliver said on Last Week Tonight. He showed clips of Schumer making “unnecessarily detailed” references to the couple. In one clip, Schumer even admitted, “I have conversations with them,” and said a staffer once told the press he had imaginary friends, which caused some trouble.
The Baileys first appeared in Schumer’s book Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time. In it, Schumer mentioned them 265 times — even though the book has only 264 pages. Oliver compared the amount of detail about the couple to “a J.R.R. Tolkien-level of backstory.”
Schumer has used the Baileys to explain his positions on issues like the 2008 financial crisis and cybersecurity. However, Oliver pointed out that the couple doesn’t seem loyal to him anymore. Schumer has said they voted for President Donald Trump in five of the last six presidential elections. “Politically, it seems they’ve already broken up with you,” Oliver quipped.
