In today’s “pot-meet-kettle” news, President Donald Trump would like all of America to know that Democratic front-runner Joe Biden—wait for it—may lack the mental capacity to be president.
According to Politico, Trump stood before about 500 Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday to stress his concern that Biden may not have the mental stamina to face the day-to-day rigors of running a general election campaign, pointing to a string of recent gaffes such as misspeaking and saying to voters that he’s running for U.S. Senate instead of president, as well as his false claim that 150 million people (over a third of the population) had died of gun violence since 2007. According to an attendee, Trump appeared to be passive-aggressively daring donors to leak his comments to the media by sarcastically saying, “I would hope you not repeat that.”
During a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., last week, Trump said that if Biden were elected, he’d soon be put “into a home and other people are going to be running the country.”
Listen, it’s not that any reasonable person wouldn’t look at Biden’s antics and think, “You know, I’m just not sure that man is very spry.” The man challenged a voter to a push-up contest once and called another one a “lying dog-faced pony soldier”; he may be a wall or two short of a hallway. But is Donald “Windmills Cause Cancer” Trump really the man to call this out? Is this not a clear case of throwing stones in glass houses? Is this not the mayonnaise packet calling the snowflake white? (Note: I’m pretty sure “the pot calling the kettle black” is some racist shit so I try to avoid using that version.)
Obvious irony aside, Philippe Reines, a former top Hillary Clinton adviser, who prepped her for the debates with Trump, isn’t so confident that Biden can afford to be cavalier about the president’s attacks on his mental stability.
“He’s not responding to the threat strong enough, because it is absolutely a problem now and [is] going to be a problem,” Reines said to Politico. “You have to defend yourself because that stuff absolutely sticks.”
Reines is referring to Trump’s nack for replacing objective truth with suggestive repetition. From Politico:
The effort provides a window into how Trump — who’s been dogged by questions about his own mental fitness — regularly picks apart his political opponents. He has an unmatched ability to zero in on his foe’s biggest vulnerability or insecurity, and through sheer repetition bake it into the public consciousness. Unfortunately for Biden, his performance on the campaign trail has given Trump plenty to work with.
It’s similar to the tack Trump used in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, whom he tagged as “low energy.” He also suggested she “doesn’t have the stamina” to be president.
Trump is probably being given too much credit here, as it’s mostly his own base who buys into such cheap mud-slinging and that’s clearly the choir he and his cohorts are preaching to with Fox News serving as a pulpit.
Rudy Giuliani said Biden is showing “obvious signs of dementia” when he appeared on the network on Saturday and Sean Hannity devoted an entire segment of his show to documenting how Biden has “a very questionable grip on reality.” Tucker Carson (The Root’s biggest fan) said on his show that Biden is “clearly” losing it. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone the fact that all of these men said these things about Biden, then went on to praise the current commander-in-covfefe.
In spite of what Clinton advisers warn, Biden doesn’t appear to be taking the president’s attacks too seriously. During a recent appearance of Fox News, he was asked to respond to a clip of Trump saying that he would “be sitting in a home someplace” if elected. Biden laughed it off and clapped back saying, “Is that the stable genius saying that?”
I mean…he has a point, is all I’m saying.