President Biden's debate with Trump was painful to watch, since Biden looked lost and confused, and often couldn't speak coherently.
Yesterday Biden had a second chance, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, to reassure Americans that he was capable of both beating Trump this November and of serving competently for another four years as president.
He failed again, though in a different fashion than at the debate. Debate Biden appeared senile. Interview Biden appeared like an old man who has lost touch with reality, yet wrongly believes there's nothing wrong with him.
It was fortunate for me that the interview was only about 22 minutes long, because at the 15 minute mark, my wife was begging me to turn off the recording I'd made of it, Biden was speaking so annoyingly.
I convinced her to watch the remaining few minutes. But just barely.
Prior to the interview both of us believed that Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and allow Vice President Harris to take his place. After the interview we felt even more strongly this should happen.
It's even more clear now that Biden is seriously out of touch with both his own aging and the state of the race between him and Trump. While it's obvious to just about everybody in the country, Biden denied that he is any different now than he was four years ago when he first ran for president.
That's obviously false. So either Biden is lying to the American public or he has deluded himself about his physical and mental health. Not a good look whichever is true.
Over and over, Stephanopoulos presented facts that Biden discounted or outright denied. I'm not saying that Biden acted as badly as Trump does with his griping about "fake news," but I heard enough of this from Biden to make me feel that I was watching Trump-lite.
Check out a transcript of the interview to see for yourself how much Biden was truth-impaired and annoyingly clueless.
Biden was asked if he'd watched a recording of his disastrous debate. He answered, "I don't think I did, no." You don't think you did? How could you not know? And if you didn't, why not? There was general agreement that Biden performed very poorly. Football teams watch a game where they played badly to learn how to improve. Yet Biden hasn't done this. Really disappointing.
Biden was asked "Are you the same man today that you were when you took office three-and-a-half years ago?" He dodged the question, talking about his accomplishments as president rather than what he was asked about, his physical and mental condition now compared to 2020.
Fifty million people who watched the debate saw a very different Biden from his first campaign for the presidency. About three-fourths of all voters and almost half of Democrats consider he is too old to run for president again. Yet Biden never addressed this concern straight-on in the interview. That was an insult to the American public.
Biden was asked if he'd agree to take a cognitive exam by a neurologist and make the results public. He said he wouldn't do this, coming up with some B.S. about how he passes a "cognitive exam" every day via his duties as president. Again, an insult to the majority of Americans who have doubts about his mental capacity.
Biden was correctly told by Stephanopoulos that he was behind Trump prior to the debate and was farther behind now. Biden said that the polls weren't accurate. Wow. Sure, they're not totally accurate, but they give a snapshot of the current state of the race. For Biden to deny this is absurd.
Biden was told that his approval rating is 36%, a big drop from 2020 when he narrowly defeated Trump. This is an undeniable fact. Yet Biden's reply was a reality-denying "Woah, woah, woah."
Biden was asked, "Do you really believe you're not behind right now?" He replied, "all the pollsters I talk to tell me it's a tossup." Well, the three major predictors of the presidential race all say that Biden is behind, with two of them saying by a lot.
The Economist gives Biden about a 25% chance of winning. FiveThirtyEight is kindest to Biden, giving him a 49% chance of winning. Nate Silver gives Biden a 30% chance of winning. So either Biden is in poll-deniability mode, or he's grievously uninformed about the state of the race.
Two final irritations from the interview.
When asked if there was any way he'd withdraw from the presidential race if he could be convinced that he couldn't beat Trump, Biden said, "It depends on-- on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that." He repeated that line, adding that the Lord Almighty isn't coming down.
This was a terrible answer.
It shows that Biden is putting himself above what's good for the country, since even if there's every indication that his running would result in Trump becoming president again -- a full-on disaster for the United States and the world -- Biden's erroneous belief that he's the only Democrat who can beat Trump is going to make him continue on with a doomed campaign.
Which brings me to an even worse answer.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that's what this is about.
Aside from Biden's response not making much sense, it shows a lack of concern about how disastrous a loss to Trump would be. Just as I've been fearing, if Biden remains the Democratic candidate and loses to Trump this November, Biden will be just fine with the loss, because he's deluded himself into believing that no other Democrat, including Kamala Harris, could have beaten Trump.
Bottom line: Biden has to be forced to withdraw from the race in order to save our country from another four years of a Trump presidency. The alarm bells are ringing. Everybody is hearing them except for Joe Biden. That's why he has to go.
Hey Brian
Agree!!!!
Regards
Posted by: William J | July 08, 2024 at 05:02 AM