Biden barely survives another hurdle … and on to the next one
The post-NATO press conference was billed as another make-or-break inflection point for President Biden – as were his State of the Union Speech, the debate, and the CNN Stephanopoulos interview. None of those highly promoted events lived up to the billing.
The closest was the debate. While it did not end Biden’s campaign, it put it into a tailspin. It unleashed panic among the Democrat political, media and donor classes. It at once forced Biden to come out of his bubble – and it made every future event seem like a make-or-break situation.
None of the past events forced Biden out of the race, but they also did not tamp down the increasing number of calls for him to withdraw from the race.
Since the beginning of the year, Biden has been on the losing end of a very close race according to the polls. President Trump has been on the leading side of most polls – but generally within the margin of error. More importantly, Trump has been doing better in the battleground states.
Most pundits and analysts on both sides have had the mantra for months: “If the election were today, Trump would win. But the election is not today.”
By most measures – especially the low hurdle to be overcome – Biden did ok. All he had to do was not fall into one of those obvious senior moments the White House staff worries about … a lot. If the debate had not happened, his performance at the post-NATO press conference would have been unremarkable – a modestly reported mediocre event. It would have changed nothing.
Ironically, it was an intensely scrutinized event by the media, political stakeholders and the American public – and based on early reports, it appears to have changed nothing.
Biden revealed some of his grasp on foreign policy, for which he is famous. But there were those moments. He referred his running mate as “Vice President Trump” – after earlier introducing Ukrainian President Zelenskyy as “President Putin.” He stumbled around rhetorically on several occasions – abruptly stopping as if he lost his train of thought. In normal times, they would not seem noteworthy, but these are not normal times.
The issue that seemed to give him the most difficulty in setting aside concerns was the question of a formal neurological test. He again demurred – but said he would take one if his doctor advised. Given his age and his symptoms, there is not a competent doctor on earth who would not recommend the test. Biden is rejecting the test because he knows he would have difficulties passing it.
Overall, Biden did a good job — but not good enough to restore confidence that he can win and serve four more years. He still professes his determination to stay in the race … and win. Conversely, the pressure on him to get out is continuing to rise. Within minutes of the end of the press conference, two more Democrat members of the House called on him to withdraw – others are expected to follow (or may have done so by the time you read this).
Members of his party are now openly saying that Biden cannot win. Vermont Senator Peter Welch was the first. Colorado Governor Michael Bennett went further. He foresees Trump winning in a landslide, taking the House and Senate with him — and others have made similar predictions.
While the national polls have the race as essentially a tie, that is not what members of Congress are reporting in their districts. The panic in the Democrat ranks is not without justification. The dream of regaining control of the House has been essentially abandoned with Biden at the head of the ticket. And most pundits have already written off the Senate to the GOP.
What most Democrats seem to be seeing is a longshot win with a new standard bearer or a sure loss with Biden. While most media folks talk about the 180 days to the election, they have forgotten that the first early voting is in little more than 60 days – barely a month after the Democrat convention in August.
The idea that there are special make-or-break events in the future is no longer valid. Every time he ventures out of his protective bubble it is a make-or-break event. Biden has cleared (barely) the hurdle of the press conference — but there is nothing but hurdles between now and Election Day. And Biden has to clear every one of them.
So, there ‘tis.
This article gets an Stop The Spin (STS) rating of STS 3, mostly due to no balance. Trump is as bad if not worse. OK, So lets get some balance by looking at Trump gaffs:
Lost Track of Trump’s Weekend Verbal Gaffes? Here’s a Full List.
Donald Trump is saying so many incomprehensible things it’s getting near impossible to keep track.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Donald Trump does not seem OK. The GOP front-runner was alarmingly loose-lipped during back-to-back campaign rallies in Richmond, Virginia, and Greensboro, North Carolina, on Saturday, during which he admitted to hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, framed President Joe Biden as a national enemy, threw around the nuclear word, and confused the man currently in the White House for his old nemesis, former President Barack Obama.
“Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I know them both very well, and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It’s a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word. You heard that. Nuclear. He’s starting to talk nuclear weapons today,” Trump said in Virginia, drawing stunned silence from his typically uproarious crowd.
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It wasn’t the first time Trump has confused the two on the campaign trail, transparently attempting to cover up the blatant memory lapses by claiming that “Obama is running the show.” But if that wasn’t enough, Trump went on to try to take credit for Veterans Choice, which was passed in 2014 under Obama.
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Trump also mistook Argentina for a person, calling MAGA the “greatest movement … maybe in the history of any country, even Argentina.”
“You know, Argentina, great guy. He’s a big Trump guy. He loves Trump. I love him because he loves Trump. Anybody that loves me. I like them,” Trump said.
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As Trump became increasingly flustered and overwhelmed, he couldn’t figure out how to say “Venezuela” and repeatedly short-circuited.
And while in North Carolina, Trump aligned himself with the January 6 rioters, hailing them as “hostages,” while pegging himself as “a proud political dissident” and “a public enemy of a rogue regime.”
And, despite awaiting trial in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, Trump condemned President Joe Biden as “the real threat to democracy.”
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“Biden’s conduct on our border is by any definition a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America,” he said in Greensboro. “Biden and his accomplices want to collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters, and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”
Other glitches included mistaking a poll for a legislative bill, calling the country the “United Stage” and a “nation that’s no longer respectered,” and just generally making an uncanny assortment of noises for a candidate for the most powerful office in the world: “Diiiiing, boom. This is me, [unintelligible] bing!”
Ahead of the weekend, Trump’s campaign signaled that it had no intention of reeling in the GOP front-runner’s alarming rhetoric.
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“Donald Trump is Donald Trump. That’s not going to change. Our job is not to remake Donald Trump,” senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita told the Associated Press.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that Americans “deserve a president who will not sugarcoat what’s happening in the world.”
And Biden’s campaign appears ready to rely on that.
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“Donald Trump is still Donald Trump—the same extreme, dangerous candidate voters rejected in 2020, and they’ll reject him again this November regardless of the team he has around him,” said Biden spokesman Kevin Munoz.
Trump has worked to distance himself from the issue of age, slamming Biden for similar verbal gaffes despite joining the 81-year-old as one of the oldest presidential candidates in U.S. history.
Over the last few months, Trump has repeatedly prided himself on “acing” a dementia test, insisted that immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “don’t speak languages,” claimed that he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans, mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his only remaining rival in the GOP race, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and described his plan for America’s missile defense system by going, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”
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He also appeared with mysterious, unexplained red sores on his hands that political commentators couldn’t help but notice looked an awful lot like syphilis.
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, your documentary is rated a zero.
Tom…. No matter how hard you beat that propaganda drum with a litany of one-sided biased opinion reports, you will never convince the majority of Americans who say Biden is losing it and should step aside… up to 70 percent in recent polls. We know what we see on our own. Maybe you should analyze errors per word count. Trump talks impromptu a lot and at length. Biden is muzzled and scripted. And there is a reason Biden has not accepted Trump’s challenge to take the senior cognitive testing. But thanks for another long rant from the cranky old man in the balcony. I am sure your balcony buddy will love it. LOL
Larry, Trump’s gaffs and medical issues involving Frontal Temporal Lobe dementia are well documented. It is not propaganda.
Trump has been using teleprompters as well, and when it did not work in Las Vegas, he flipped to talking batteries and sharks! LOL
Your biggest mistake about me is that you think I am trying to convince anyone. I am not. I am simply presenting the other side that you purposefully always do not write. Unlike your efforts to steer people’s thinking by your articles and wicked comments, I simply let people read and decide on their own. Isn’t that the way our system should work?
Tom … Your first graph is either your invention or you read it somewhere and simply except it as truth because you desire to do so. It is the type of bullshit that you wallow in. Trump not only has not been diagnosed with any issues of medical acuity decline .. he does not show any signs that can be discerned from afar — unlike Biden. You are practicing medicine without a license and political punditry without integrity.
And as far a the reason you write, I cannot pretend to know. Given what and how you write — and your obsessive attention to moi — I am mystified as to your reasons. I assume it is for your own satisfaction and sense of relevancy… that old intellectual masturbation. It is good that you are not out to convince anyone, At least you understand the limitation of your contributions
Larry, Where did I use the word “diagnosed”? I stated well documented which is true, that is why 100 Psychiatrists have sent a letter to the RNC regarding these issues. Please learn to read. I never said “diagnosed”. Perhaps you should learn to read. And get your head out of MAGA rump and read *https://www.businessinsider.com/psychiatrists-submit-warning-trumps-mental-health-deteriorating-2019-12* and there are other articles.
In another statement released at the same time, New York psychologist Suzanne Lachmann said Trump, 77, would “seemingly forget how the sentence began and invent something in the middle” resulting in “an incomprehensible word salad”—a behavior she argued is observed “frequently in patients who have dementia.” Maybe read this article at *https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-dementia-evidence-overwhelming-top-psychiatrist-1881247* which describes his dementia. There is so much out there on this topic – all you have to do is get out of the MAGA hype and read the truth!!
I have no obsessive attention to you. My attention is to the public. I want them to know both sides. They are more intelligent than you give them credit for in the way you write and try to steer minds. But I understand you sentiments and your craving for attention that drives your silly comments of me.
Tom … You stated as a matter of FACT that Trump has Frontal Temporal Lobe Dementia. You cannot make such a claim unless you have see a legitimate DIAGNOSIS — or else you are simply a liar. You try to wiggle off the hook by citing 100 politicized shrinks and a lady psychologist in New York who have never diagnosed Trump — and it is unethical to make such a diagnosis without personal examination and testing. Shame on you for even such a dishonest diagnosis on your own dishonest motivation. (I suppose you still believe the 50 intel folks who issued a letter lying about the Hunter laptop for political reasons.)
In one reply, you say you are not trying to convince anyone — and now you say you purpose is to reach the public. Do you have any idea why you write and why you are obsessed with me — proven by your constant replies … the length of your replies … you personal and childish insults direct my way … and that silly ass rating system you have only for moi.
Judging from your more recent writings, perhaps at your age you need to get a psychological or cognitive examination. I am not making a diagnosis, but a recommendation based on what I see. Or is it just gross intellectual dishonesty?
There is no need to defame me when discussing with Tom.
I am right here
Wow Tom, arguing for the sakes of arguing?
I thought you were above this.
And smarter!
Frank must be busy today!
Tom president Trump was almost murdered Saturday and all you have to say is about “gaffs”? You’re a joke and a real tool. I think you outdid Frank and that says a lot But know this. Trump is your next president. So get over it.
Dan. I paid respects to Trump grateful he escaped harm asap. You are way off base here.
I watched it live, wrote a piece that I posted twice, but must have messed up and it did not stick. Othees of mine are there.
Dan, stop being a dummy! Please look at the time of my post!!! Even a high school drop out can compare and see that I posted well before Trump was nicked by a bullet that he might have prevented if he had enacted gun legislation the Dems want and you have consistently not only rejected but threatened anyone coming after your guns.
And in case you did not notice, the article’s thrust was about Biden’s survival in part due to his gaffs. That is why I posted the article. As far as Trump goes, I am not a Trump supporter. He has done plenty to make our political environment as well as our judicial system a toxic affair, as have his MAGA minions. He has been against taking assault weapons off of the street, as have you. So now he finally got to taste of what happens when you 1) spread toxicity by thought and word at rallies and in news videos, 2) do not get assault weapons off of the street, 3) make fun of people with mental health issues. Trump is an evil man. So I really do not care what happens to him. He will reap what he has sewn.
You are dillusional if you think I care about your hurt or concerned feelings about Trump being shot. For the record, I do not care.
By the way, where was your outrage when Pelosi’s husband got attacked putting him in the hospital fighting for his life, Trump showed zero compassion, and neither did you!
Where was your outrage when a fellow in a grey pick up truck rode around with a picture of Biden laying sideways hogtied in the back of a pick up truck?
Where was your outrage when people were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” ?
Where is your outrage over all of the lies Trump tells, or his assaults on women, or his mishandling of sensitive documents where he exposed and in some cases gave info to Putin – thus endangering all American lives! Well, where was your outrage then?
Sorry but as an Independent, I do not compare myself to Frank. If you really want to talk outdoing Frank, J.D. Vance did that when he accused Dems of attempting to assassinate Trump. That was stupid and totally uninformed. Where is your outrage???
Hey Dan, here’s more!! Trump had his “Trump Assassination Attempt Sneakers” out there on the market before he called the widow of the man who laid himself over his family to save them from the shooter! See *https://www.axios.com/2024/07/17/trump-sneakers-shooting-pre-order* for this grifter’s latest scheme! Buy them!!! Support his legal fees!!!
Trump is a real joke and a real tool (to put it in your words!)!!
I have already commented on this same or similar story been running non stop since Trump first attacked Joe on age.
I think we need someone who says they want to unite the country.
Not arguing. Just providing balance. That’s all. Trump supporters and independent voters should know that he makes plenty of gaffs too! What I posted was from an article about Trump and his gaffs. I hope you enjoyed it!
What happened to my comment?
I asked nicely: What happened to my comment”? Why are you blackballing me? I am not a mean, terrible person. I feel sorry for those who feel a great need to control other people’s lives. You are doing that, too, the way I see and feel it. I did nor said anything wrong. BUT two others on this site did. So, what is your problem with me? I am a human being and I deserve to be heard, too! Unless you only want the male species to comment here, yes, that is obvious. I expect an answer. Do not treat me like a criminal. You don’t have that right! I do feel you are treating me like a criminal. AND I can call it elder abuse!
Sorry, we have a live moderator, and he drinks a lot…
Joe, Yeah, two of mine, same general post got zapped on Trump shooting thread. Too bad, I caught it live and posted my real time comments. Probably screwed up the email, probably not his drinking, but can’t do it again since terrible short term memory.
So sad.
I did call the hot summer political effect though. May be more to come. The snaggle tooth moment being priceless foreshadowing…..
now i just tried on another post, a third time, no go. and then i took out all the Trump’s, in the text, and still no go.
Weird.
One more attempt – for tonight. What CRIME did I commit? Please have the decency and heart to answer me. Thank you.