He essentially used almost the exact same “kill line” on Biden that I recommended:
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence; I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
Of course, it’s a pretty obvious one, but at least he or someone on his team is alert.
And no, I am not watching this nadir in our democracy’s history. Someone who had read my post called me up to tell me about it.
Looking around the web and social media, it appears that the Axis will have a tough time spinning this. From S.E. Cupp, one of CNN’s token conservatives who hates Trump:
Ethics Alarms 
Okay, we’re kinda watching. Biden looks really weak, but he’s hanging in there for the moment. There have been two moments where the moderators covered for Biden big time. One, they cut Biden’s mic early when he was really meandering, and one where they had to remind Biden what the topic was. Biden seems to me someone who is well into his cups fighting very hard to pretend he’s on top of what’s being said.
I actually think that the moderators did an amazing job here, as far as debate moderation goes, it’s legitimately probably the best I can think of in my lifetime: They asked the prompts, they got out of the way, instead of pushing back, they’d just say: “You have X seconds remaining, I’ll restate the prompt”.
Even the point you made about when Biden was stumbling, I think that they just let him flop around until his time was over, and cut him off just like they would have (and did) when he was mid-point (once).
A robot could have done that. I don’t see why it’s worthy of praise. Their job is to inform the public, and refusing to fact-check any of the candidates’ statement was a dereliction of that duty.
But as CNN showed after the debate, it is incapable of “factchecking” fairly and objectively. In that case, better that they shut up.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I think it goes to what you think the purpose of a debate is… This idea that the candidates should be fact checked in real time is new and strange, particularly when the factcheckers make mistakes.
For the record: My ideal debate would be that as opposed to questions, the candidates be given a certain amount of time, and general topics. A robot could literally do this, and I think it would be better.
“This idea that the candidates should be fact checked in real time is new and strange, particularly when the factcheckers make mistakes.”
Gee, I wonder what has happened since 2016 to inspire such a new and strange phenomenon.
You… Think Trump was the first politician to lie?
Of course not.
Well, that was ugly. Biden looked and sounded frail, disorganized, and confused. Trump was, well, Trump.
jvb
I mean… The erection joke and the golf handicap comparison aside… I actually think Trump was pretty good.
People like you or me look at Trump and think he sounds simple… He does this on purpose. He’s given speeches, had conversations, at normal cognition levels. He purposefully speaks at a 5th grade level at events like this because he thinks it plays well with the electorate. There’s a rule of goats problem there, and it’s kind of a condemnation of the electorate, but he didn’t really go off the rails like I expected him to.
Spot on.
Even CNN is stating that it was a terrible night for Biden.
jvb
I’ve just started watching the recording; So far Biden is not doing well; he sounds anxious and nervous, is already stumbling and getting lost in his responses. He went blank for a while and then, inexplicably said he (Biden) “killed medicare”.
I did come across some video of Joe’s secret debate prep, though (if the link works):
<a href=”https://media.tenor.com/jrBZhFYuWDIAAAAM/mr-burns.gif“>HERE</a>
The Babylon Bee nailed the debate prep: https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-preps-for-debate-against-biden-by-going-to-nursing-home-and-arguing-with-dementia-patients
Hi Jack. I strongly recommend going to CNN’s youtube channel and watch the post debate discussion. It is fascinating to me. Everyone across the press and democrat party has been gaslighting badly about President Biden’s mental state. The rose tinted glasses came off hard tonight.
Watching the debate, I, of course, thought Biden was completely incoherent. Yet I wasn’t confident about the outcome because the gaslighting by the press. So it came as a shock to me that they had the reaction they did. Tonight they realized they could no longer do it.
MSNBC is still gaslighting. They were talking about how wonderful Kamala Harris is.
Anderson Cooper interviewed Harris and asked pointed, direct questions. To her credit (. . . erm . . .) she towed the party line supporting Biden and the ticket. Not much else she could do, though. She has no future without Biden.
jvb
The DNC-coordinated media response is well underway:
CNN headline: “Biden’s Poor Showing and Trump’s Repeated Falsehoods.”
MSNBC headline: “Biden Struggles as Trump Misinforms.”
Gee, isn’t that an interesting coincidence? The Biden Administration is now writing headlines! They must have been ready with that talking point for days now. Assholes.
What in those headlines do you see as inaccurate, and why?
I mean… Is there a lie there? No. It’s technically true. The best kind of true, right?
But if we were looking at being honest, I’d say there was a miopic focus on Trump’s lies and a whitewashing of Biden’s.
He said that he had the endorsement of the Border Patrol, prompting this nugget:
https://x.com/BPUnion/status/1806501048724430943
He knew the context for the Charlottesville comment, he knows that Trump didn’t call the tiki-nazis “very fine people”.
Over and over again, lie after lie, and I’m not sure whether the problem is that he’s a lying liar who lies, or senile.
The fact of the matter is that Trump lies by exaggeration, but the smoothness with which Joe lies, and the willingness of your media to let it slide, is an order of magnitude more insidious.
I have, as you know, made this point many times. The Trump-Deranged refuse to accept it. Biden’s lies are also far more consequential than Trump’s, just As Obama’s “If you like your plan…” lie was more outrageous and insidious than any misstatement Trump has made in politics. When it comes to lies, size matters.
“If you like your plan, you can keep it,” which was true for the majority of people, was more outrageous and insidious than Trump’s lies about the election? One led to millions of people getting health insurance for the first time, and the other led to the first attack on our Capitol in two centuries. I cannot agree.
Yup. Trump’s blathering about having won mostly hurt him, and he didn’t need to convince many Americans that the 2020 election was uniquely unfair. Obama lied to pass a badly flawed law that has not done much of what it promised to do, hasn’t lowered health care costs, and hasn’t paid for itself. He didn’t say “most of you will be able to keep your plan.” He made it unequivocal, and that was false, a lie, and a pure, ruthless, “ends justifies the means’ deception of the American people. People want to believe the President, and Obama betrayed their trust.
There is evidence it has lowered healthcare costs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/13/did-obamacare-massively-increase-cost-health-care/
I agree with you that it doesn’t justify the lie.
I do think Trump’s falsehoods about the election were far more baseless, and did more harm. Ashli Babbit and Brian Sicknick would still be alive if not for those falsehoods.
“There is evidence” that anything Trump said led to Jan 6th much in the same way there is evidence that Obamacare led to lower healthcare costs–a weak correlation that biased individuals will latch on to in order to feed their biases.
More likely, millions of Americans saw Trump winning until all those mail-in ballots appeared and gave Biden the presidency. Mail-in ballots are not a good way to encourage faith in the integrity of your voting system especially when it changes the winner overnight.
Bingo.
“More likely, millions of Americans saw Trump winning until all those mail-in ballots appeared and gave Biden the presidency.”
Did those same millions of Americans not know that Trump specifically told his supporters not to vote by mail?
Or they did know that, and couldn’t make the connection between that and Trump getting fewer mail-in ballots than Biden?
Were they unable to figure out why there might be more mail-in ballots than usual in 2020?
But these same Americans knew that the certification of the vote happened on January 6th, and would have protested the certification of the vote–an event that has always been largely ceremonial and has passed without incident in every other election–even if Donald Trump had never told them to go to the Capitol and get Pence stop the certification?
Unreal. An absolutely pathetic denial of reality. The Capitol riot *does not happen* absent Trump’s claims that the election was rigged and that the certification could be stopped. It is gaslighting to pretend that the months of Trump’s conspiracy theories had no effect on the actions of his most devout followers.
“Did those same millions of Americans not know that Trump specifically told his supporters not to vote by mail?”
I said nothing of why those ballots went strongly toward Biden. Non sequitur.
All I said was that mail-in ballots are not a way to inspire confidence in a voting system, especially when they skew very heavily one direction, regardless of why they skew that way. Too suspicious, too insecure, too novel to use on such short notice, especially for a presidential election. Not to mention illegal in many states, without proper legislative input.
“even if Donald Trump had never told them to go to the Capitol and get Pence stop the certification?”
Please cite this. I’ve never heard that Trump told the protesters to stop the certification process. That’s a big jump from telling them to fight (an extremely commonly used word in politics).
Unless you’re willing to hold any person accountable for any illegal activity that occurs at a public protest if they encouraged that protest, I find your claims hopelessly biased. Trump is not liable for what those protesters did, period.
You’re kidding. Trump told them to go to the Capitol for the purposes of stopping Congress from certifying the election. He based this on lies. The certification could not be stopped and he told them it could. He said they should only count the “real electors” even though he ordered people to submit slates of fake electors. There were more mail-in ballots because of the pandemic; nothing suspicious about that, nor was there anything suspicious about the slant given that Biden encouraged mail-in voting and Trump discouraged it. Again, Ashli Babbit would not have been there on January 6th had it not been for Trump’s lies.
Please cite where Trump told his supporters to go stop the certification.
That’s what “stop the steal” meant. It’s what he told Pence to do. Why do *you* think he set the rally for January 6th? You’re being deliberately obtuse. The goal was to pressure Pence and other members of Congress to decertify. This is not in question and not up for debate. I won’t address it again.
Check your history.
There’s a significant attack on the capital at least once per generation.
March 1st, 1971.
November 7th, 1983.
September 11.
Many more.
Thanks. Though 9/11 was the Pentagon, not the Capitol building.
Why is it always “my media” when it’s bad? 😉
Yes, Biden had some lies. Trump had more, as usual. As long as the articles call out lies from both sides, I don’t see why it’s a problem for the headline to point out that one candidate told more lies than the other.
It’s your media because you’re American?
And I disagree that Trump even lied with more frequency than Biden. I think you think that because Biden’s were so smooth and you’re willing to give him cover.
He said his tax plan would take in an additional 500 billion in a 10 year period.
It wouldn’t.
He said that 500 billion would cover Trump’s debt.
It wouldn’t.
He said you don’t need a degree to make $100,000/year making semiconductors.
You do.
He said that Trump wants to end Social Security.
Trump has never said that.
He said that he wouldn’t increase taxes on people earning less than $400,000.
He did.
Biden said that no service members have died under his watch.
There have been.
In his rally today, Biden said that he didn’t speak as clearly as he used to and doesn’t debate as well as he used to, but he knows how to tell the truth.
So he’s lying about lying. Nice.
Kamala isn’t wonderful, but she would have done a lot better in that debate than Biden did. Woof. Her biggest flaw that I’ve noticed is that she often fails to directly address the question, but that was also true of both Biden and Trump last night.
Her biggest flaw is that she’s an empty suit, with not being very bright #2 and not being able to speak clearly even without being demented #3. The number of people who would have done “a lot better” than Biden include me, you, several million other compos mentis Americans and Joy Behar.
The media has known all along and has been covering quite solidly for Biden. The media’s commentary last night was all planned beforehand – it was all theater so they could reverse course to “admit” what we all knew and what we all knew that they also knew.
They all had fully completed articles published early this morning on just the topic of him needing to step down. An actual coup is occurring in the democrat party now. We’ll see which side wins.
Welp- the media got the theater they needed to openly admit what we’ve all known for 3 and a half years now.
Now they can reverse the past years of covering for Biden’s cognitive plummet and turn on him in an effort to get a new “more vibrant” candidate.
The Democratic Party is now in the very difficult position of:
I might even have to check out the next press conference, just to watch KJP spin this one…
Indeed
#2: Watch to see if his puppeteers start scheduling lots of bike rides.
The actual puppet-like walk done by both candidates at the beginning of the debate was a bit on the nose, I thought. The writers are phoning it in.
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/4429147648/h59B13D47/bike-duck
Who? Gavin Newsom, so he can screw the country up the way he screwed California up? Michelle Obama, who has neither the ability nor the desire? Gretchen Whitmer, aka Governor Karen? Or maybe he should just step aside and let His brilliant vice president take over? This is the same vice president who can’t even talk to children without sounding like a complete word salad and the same vice president who has basically disappeared from every assignment she’s been given, and the same vice president who after about a month of “yes, we Kam,” was shuffled off into the background. Maybe they can tap Stacey Abrams, and she can spend the next 4 years whining about being the rightful president.
I wouldn’t know who. And neither do the democrats.
But they’ve managed to pull themselves out of pinches before and given their control of media they’ll make sure they look like grand statesmen in the process.
There’s an opinion piece in the Sacramento Bee that argues that it’s time to replace Biden with Newsom, in fact.
Beneath that on my Yahoo feed is a Politico article that says Democrats are freaking out, including an opinion by a Democratic operative that argues it’s “time for an open convention”.
And U.S.A Today is beneath that article with social media reaction to the debate that it’s also not flattering to the President.
And Yahoo itself had a shockingly fair headline: “Fact check: Biden and Trump trade falsehoods and context-free claims at 1st presidential debate of 2024”
The blinders are coming off.
If there’s an open convention in the DNC – that will be the first bombshell to explode in what I predicted in 2020 – that this decade was going to be about major political realignments of the two main parties. I was hoping that the GOP defeat in 2020 would be a clue for them to begin their process of realigning certain aspects of their organization and there’s signs this began, albeit slowly and mostly with resistance from the top.
But there’s a good chance this spurs the DNC to break down which will make the GOP more comfortable breaking down also.
By 2030 we’ll see entirely new parties (which will be general vestiges of the old parties) with significant changes –
and then hopefully a couple of generations of reasonably calm politicking.
Maybe they’ll nominate Jill Biden.
To no one’s surprise, the inimitable Babylon Bee is having a FIELD DAY!
PWS
I watched the debate last night and I am trying to look at this as fairly as I can, though I know I’m biased. I also went into this debate thinking it would be a total disaster, and really, while it was not good, it was better than I expected, so I’m a little Pollyanna-ish on it.
Trump seemed to be lower energy tonight than I hoped. Trump, compared to his usual bombastic self, was tired and reduced in nature. Of course, he was as energetic as many of our older politicians, but not keeping up with the youngsters, so perhaps my comparison is unfair. I did worry about his health, seeing him not be as energetic as he has been before, though it did aid him in the debate, as he didn’t pull as much of his usual stuff. So, yeah, Trump came across as comparatively calmer, but tired.
I said Trump was lower energy. Biden was a zombie. Now, my husband said he thought Biden won the debate. My husband had expected Biden to ramble on completely incoherently, wander off stage, and completely lose touch with the questions. So, no, he wasn’t THAT bad. He was, however, squinting the whole while, as if he were focusing very hard to stay in the game. He had some rambles, one where the moderators cut his mike, and he said some crazy stuff, but it was at least usually within realm of the debate format instead of “dog-faced pony soldier” and “Trumpanarzurlize”. He looked and acted old and struggling, but he stayed mostly on topic. I actually had some respect for both he and Trump for using their time to attack their opponent’s last comment and then answer the question with their time left. One time, the moderators had to remind him of the topic. He wasn’t well spoken, but he did manage to get his words out. Biden, thus, came across poorly, but not as the poster-boy for elder abuse.
The moderators were, compared to my expectations, pretty fair. Sure, there were some instances of propping up Biden, but it wasn’t horrible. Generally, they stayed out of the way. (One might have LIKED Tapper to say that he was one of the people who found the “Nazis are good people” to be false when Biden drug the Charlottesville topic out and declared that Trump saying that it had been debunked to be a lie, but that wasn’t his job, so I’ll give him a pass.) I don’t think we could have hoped for a more fair set of moderators for this debate, unless we started thinking in idealist terms.
As for the debate itself, Trump hammered on two big points. He wanted us to know how great things were under him in comparison to today and the travesty of the border. He also mentioned, several times, how Biden and the Democrats have attacked him as a political rival. He made some fun rejoinders, such as (paraphrased), “if I did that, I’d have been impeached” or the one on the post “I don’t know what he said, I don’t think he knows what he said.” He had his usual hyperbolic stance on everything, but kept mostly to highly exaggerated truth and opinions, rather than lying. So, I’m going to say no to the “Trump lies”. A great deal of what he said was opinion, not fact and when he pulled facts in, he exaggerated in the bombastic way he always has. He brought up Afghanistan, Israel, Ukraine, inflation, and immigration. I will also note that Trump said that his plan for revenge on his political opponents was to be successful. I am glad he said that. He is hard to listen to, but as a normal person from a blue-collar family, it is approachable.
Biden was all over the place. I did not get a message from him aside from Orange Man Bad. He tried the convicted felon approach once and Trump didn’t let that stick. He tried the “how dare you” approach. He talked about how he has fixed so much that his opponent had broken, like the economy. He tried to say that the US is strong and powerful and respected. He said that while the border was an issue, that he has worked hard to fix it rather than Trump who put children in cages. He talked about how Trump called Nazis good, called servicemen losers, and instigated an insurrection on Jan 6th. His delivery was poor and I never managed to understand his points other than Orange Man Bad. This could very well be bias on my part, but I thought that in terms of content, this was a pathetically weak showing.
Finally, I will point to the one instance where they both broke the format and started talking to each other. The moderators didn’t shut off either microphone, that I could tell, and as it started to get to name calling, Trump said, “let’s not act like children.” Now, admittedly, if Trump can say that, we know that things were not going well, but I almost hoped, for a portion of a second, that Trump almost saw a learning curve instead of a flat line there.
Overall, this debate sucked to watch and I consumed more calories than was healthy trying to do so. Depending on how you look at it, the winner of the debate was Biden, for not showcasing himself as completely incompetent, or Trump for managing to actually get a message across.
Trump mauled Biden pretty badly. Biden came of as stiff, wheezy, creaky, and wedded to in some cases contradictory talking points. He also told a whopper when he said no American soldiers had died on his watch (Afghanistan, anyone?) and compounded the whopper by referencing his son Beau, implying that he died in Afghanistan when he died at Walter Reed from an unfortunate regrowth of cancer. He got it completely backwards by saying he “killed Medicare” when he meant to say he saved it and gave Trump an opportunity to beat him up on that.
The eminent military historian Trevor N. Dupuy, may he rest in peace, described the Battle of Castillon in 1453, where the French decisively defeated the English through the use of artillery and ended the Hundred Years’ War, as “Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt [the major English victories the opened the first and second phases of that war] in reverse.” Last night was 2020, where a fiery Biden outperformed a bull-in-a-China-shop Trump, in reverse. Maybe this was planned all along by the DNC to create generally accepted justification to get Biden, whose record as President is abysmal and they know it, off the ticket. I doubt it, though I don’t doubt they are glad for the buzz generated by the speculation of what would happen if Biden decided to leave the ticket taking some of the spotlight away from his poor performance itself.
More likely, though, they are preparing for what’s beginning to look more and more like the Democratic Party is going to take deserved lumps for not just not good performance, but poor performance in November, and being able to say, “we tried to get him off the ticket, but we couldn’t,” so the money and votes will keep flowing for 2028.
I do not disagree with most of what you say, but when the bar is as low as it has been set for Biden, this still looks like a win for him.
He was there and mostly aware, which is far more than I expected. Trump did far better than he by nearly any normal standard. Normal standards have been tossed aside for a few years now and I fear that the “new normal” still puts him up, though I am hoping that some are finally realizing that we have a naked emperor.
(Trust me on this: it wasn’t set THAT low.)
I hope you’re right!
I thought, for a man well in his dotage, that he performed very well. Of course, I don’t want my president to BE a man in his dotage.
I have actually been pondering why I thought his speech was about 90% clear, and people have been complaining about how bad it was. I have come to the conclusion that as a mother of a toddler, a kindergartner, a child with special needs, and an attitude prone pre-teen, I am used to listening to and interpreting slurs, mumbles, and off the wall sentences. Perhaps that skill came into play last night more than I realized.
The rest of the world saw this embarrassment and it is embarrassing. I do not disagree that this was a debacle.
I have been expecting to see the MSM compare Biden’s successful debate performance to Sherman’s retreat through Atlanta in 1864.
jvb
Judge Juan Merchan will come through for the democrats and sentence Trump to jail time on July 11. Seems almost inevitable now. Nothing surprises me any more.
Something has to give; I don’t see Biden running in November. Someone will replace him on the ballet, I don’t know who that will be. Probably one of the potential candidates mentioned in previous comments.
This might be the most accurate prophecy…and it won’t likely be a “couple-of-months” sentence.
This is a conviction for a series of paperwork violations, no violence or drugs involved, overcharged, possibly outside the statute, and with an appeal already in place, with a defendant with an otherwise clean record, in a state and county where individuals regularly get probation for violent assaults and murderers get released without bail, and this judge is going to order years’ worth of prison time? If that’s not immediately appealable, probably expedited because of possible irreparable harm, I don’t know what is.
A conviction that works its way through the system and may well get reversed is one thing, but actually locking up a major party’s candidate in the middle of an election is another. When you add the fact that, in any other situation, a similarly situated defendant, indeed a defendant less well situated, would likely still be free while his appeal was pending, few if any questions asked, then an attempt to rush Trump into jail and keep him there is neon-sign obviously political and an attempt to decisively and ham-handedly not just influence the election, but decide it in advance. That’s an awfully big step to take and an awfully big risk that half the country will say it’s all right.
They won’t do it. Trump will be out of jail on bail pending his appeal. Some lines even these assholes won’t dare cross.
I don’t know how sure I am of that. This one is for all the marbles, probably including the chance to solidify the conservative hold on SCOTUS. A lot of folks on the liberal side think this is a matter of saving this country from the greatest menace since the Civil War, by any means necessary, and if it means going banana republic and locking up the other party’s best candidate on ginned-up charges, even just long enough to tip the scales against him, then so be it. Once someone is willing to put his thumb and then his hand on the scales, squashing the scales with a large, armored tank becomes no big deal.
I too doubt Trump will serve jail time for this conviction, but I think you are leaving out one factor relevant to sentencing: remorse. Trump continues to publicly deny not just the crimes themselves, but even the root cause of those crimes last night at the debate (“sex with a pornstar,” which was a dumb line by Biden, especially when he implied that that’s what Trump was on trial for). No one buys this denial; he’d be better off arguing that he was trying to hide the affair from his wife (even though that’s not really all that believable either, given their previous affair and subsequent loveless marriage) and that he thought the way he filed the paperwork was legal. He could express remorse for the affair, as Clinton eventually did (though not before committing perjury first) and for dragging the country through this mess with his poor choices. But as is is nature, he’s been defiant throughout the whole trial, to the point of violating several gag orders. Judges don’t like that, and it does influence sentencing. He is a first-time offender, but can judges also consider civil judgments against a convict as well when sentencing? That I don’t know. Again, I doubt he’ll see the inside of a cell–and he definitely won’t before the election due to the appeal–but if he does, he will have himself to blame as much as any judge, juror, or Democrat.
Why would he show remorse when he believes he did nothing wrong? Why would he show remorse when he believes this whole thing was a political show trial? Remorse is when you know you’re guilty. “Sex with a porn star” was in fact a dumb line, since that’s not what Trump was on trial for, nor was he on trial for trying to defraud his wife. He definitely wasn’t on trial for the choices he made as president and their results, if presidents could be tried for that, no one would want the job and more than half the 46 would be in jail. No, criminal judges can’t consider civil findings of liability in unrelated matters when deciding what sentence to impose, there are aggravating and mitigating factors they can consider, but that’s not one of them. A criminal conviction is a gate to punishment for the crime within the guidelines set, not a way to backdoor someone into a life sentence because you think he is a rotten person and you want him out of society permanently.
But he *did* do something wrong. The affair (which we all know he had; as Mitt Romney said, you don’t pay a woman $35,000 for not sleeping with you) and the subsequent coverup were morally wrong, even if you disagree that they were legally wrong. A show of public responsibility and humility would make him more sympathetic to the judge at sentencing. Of course Trump doesn’t believe he did anything wrong; he doesn’t believe he is capable of doing anything wrong. And his sentencing is likely to be harsher because of it. A wiser, more responsible person could make different choices to mitigate this; Trump won’t, and probably can’t.
Wait, what? He should show remorse for something that isn’t illegal because his sentence for doing something that isn’t illegal will be harsher?
I guess thank you for pointing out the kangaroo court trial that they inflicted on Trump?
Or are you arguing that sleeping with another woman and then paying her to be quiet is illegal?
The trial is over. Trump was found to have violated laws about falsifying business records. He can appeal, but in the meantime, he should have a backup plan if his appeal fails. That backup plan needs to account for the reality that judges, when sentencing convicts, factor in remorse. In the eyes of the law, Trump is guilty; now the question is what punishment is appropriate. A convict who shows remorse for their actions and takes personal responsibility, at least partially, is likely to get a less harsh sentence than one who continues to lie about their crimes and the underlying conduct behind those crimes. The latter convict is a lot likelier to reoffend than the former. If the convict shows they’ve learned nothing from their experience and takes no responsibility for their actions, they are going to be sentenced more harshly. This is fair.
I’m not a lawyer, but any good lawyer would give their client this advice.
Probably good legal advice, but not good advice for the health of our country. He shouldn’t bow down to the banana republic trial; he should face it down for the sham it was.
The president should continue to lie about an extramarital sexualm encounter and his attempt to cover it up…for the good of our country? He should continue to argue that it’s ok that he falsified business records, baselessly claim bias on the part of the judge and jury, and continue to argue that the American court system is like that of a third-world country…for the good of our country?
You’re sure he’s doing all this for the good of our country and not for his own selfish ends? The same selfish ends that led him to cheat on his wife, pressure Stormy Daniels into sex, and then attempt to cover it up in the first place?
I would normally agree with that but for Bragg’s attempt to extend the gag order, which the judge is actually considering. When was that last time that happened?
jvb
I very much doubt that Biden will be replaced, unless he steps down voluntarily.
That is truly amazing. Is Doctor Jill lashing the country to Joe for the next more than four years? As women say of other women of whom they disapprove, “What a bitch.”
The hell? How on earth are you managing to blame Biden’s wife for his choice not to step down? Were you just looking for any excuse to call a woman a bitch this morning?
NAL: Last night virtually every commentator and pundit—and this is on CNN and MSNBC, not just Fox News– conceded that nobody could talk Joe into withdrawing other than Jill. Not Obama, not Clinton, not anybody. Who know if it is true or now—this seems to come from the usual “sources inside the White House—but Bill’s not making it up.
She would be far from the first First Lady to have that degree of influence over her husband.
That doesn’t mean she’s the one convincing him to stay in the race, and the “bitch” line was unnecessary.
Agreed. But if she’s the only one 1) with all her marbles who 2) has the power to get him to do the right thing and 3) doesn’t, then blame is appropriate.
Maybe she still thinks Biden is the only one who can beat Trump, as he did in 2016. In that case, not pressuring him to drop out would be the right thing. She might be wrong about that premise, but it doesn’t make her a “bitch.”
No, it’s not the right thing, even if he is the only one who can beat Trump. Because she’s an American, and she has an obligation as a citizen not to saddle the country with a senile, unfit leader who can’t do the job. And, as a beneficiary of Joe’s office, she has a conflict of interest in addition to the obvious one of loyalty to family and loyalty to country.
So does Melania have an obligation to pressure Trump to step down?
Come on, be serious. Trump is not demented. You’re Trump-Deranged: you can’t be rational where he’s concerned. Trump is as fit for the office as he was the first time around, but with more experience. Equating him to Biden is intellectually dishonest.
Watch it, NAL, that’s pretty close to trolling. Anyone can see Biden is falling apart mentally. If Jill wasn’t so enamored of the perks and the status, she would realize that and not push him to keep going, his ability to lead be damned.
I’m not equating Donald Trump’s mental state to Biden’s. I think Trump’s is far worse. He’s a narcissistic sociopath and always has been. And that’s a lot worse than “old.” This isn’t intellectually dishonest, it’s how I and millions of other Americans truly feel.
Feeling something doesn’t make it rational. And the fact the millions are similarly irrational just makes that an “Everybody does it” rationalization.You are, and you must know this, comparing apples and oranges, disability and incompetence with character. This is a neon bright admission of Trump Derangement; it makes no sense.
Nothing about the debate indicated Biden is too disabled and incompetent to do the job of presidency.
And if the day comes when he is, he will be replaced by his Vice President, who is not disabled or incompetent. Neither are sociopaths. Easy choice. Your ethics alarms are failing you.
The CNNs of the world suggested that Biden will go to the convention, declare that his presidency accomplished what he planned, withdraw his campaign/run for reelection, release his delegates and allow the open convention to select a new candidate/ticket. That way, Harris does not become the nominee by default (talk about a proverbial slap in her face – so much for all that fealty, eh Vice Pres?). Biden completes his term and transfers power in January 2025 to the new president.
jvb
Not that easy. Many states do not permit a party on the ballot to just switch out candidates willy-nilly, and some only allow it in the event of the death of the candidate. The Democrats made their bed by anointing Biden, not having primaries, and hiding his true condition or trying to for four years. They can’t fix this. Serves them right.
Trump is capable of self awareness; it what makes his Trainwreck of a personality so unbearable.
This speech from apparently 2018 has always stuck with me.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/politics/donald-trump-drinking/index.html
It’s Trump reflecting on his brother, who died of complications related to alcoholism. “Can you imagine if I had [drank]? What a mess I would be.” He also calls his abstinence “one of his few good traits”.
Trump does have self awareness. He just doesn’t seem to use it, or worse, actively chooses to act the way he does.
Biden was often staring down at his podium and moving his hand as if reading lines while speaking. What was that about? I thought they weren’t supposed to have any notes.
Using cribbed notes during an exam. Sounds like Joe.
Well, they didn’t help if he had them.
Bad eyesight will make “during my Presidency the economy…” look like “dzilmq np Riarlbamap iba aaamanp…”
Huh…he must have been reading a crib sheet.
Joel Mundt wrote, “Huh…he must have been reading a crib sheet.”
Maybe that was a reminder note he wrote to himself on the note pad provided during the debate, see my note above. Remember Biden has shown a pattern of reading aloud whatever he see in front of him from a teleprompter, so Biden saying “dzilmq np Riarlbamap iba aaamanp” after an earlier brain fart caused him to write that isn’t completely out of question.
He didn’t have any notes while walking to the podium, and they weren’t there before. You’re reading too much into this.
Aha, this is the comment you were talking about.
Yes, Biden was looking down at the podium routinely and caught on camera fumbling with something during the debate.
I’m pretty sure that they were both allowed a pen and blank pad to take notes with, you can clearly see Trump pulling the cap off a pen and writing on something at the very beginning of the debate as the initial question was being asked, that can be seen at 3:14 on the Cspan video. Then at 10:50 in the same Cspan video you can clearly see a pen in Biden’s right hand and the thump of his left hand appears to be holding down a small pad of paper.