Lost in the shock (and frankly, because he is our Commander-in-Chief, the horror) of Joe Biden’s visible mental and physical decay is the fact that Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have quietly run a fine debate. Good questions, good moderation, and the fact that Trump is playing by the rules make it (unfortunately) that much easier to focus on Biden’s bearing.
Leaning on presidential historians’ rankings of the presidents, as Biden just did, is pathetic.
Trump responds by attacking Biden for being a liar and for not securing the border, but does not articulate any plan for Social Security.
It is not “protecting our seniors” to leave entitlements alone. There is not enough money to take from the rich to make entitlements solvent. Medicare and Social Security are coming up about $120 trillion short over the next 30 years. Neither of these guys has any clue how they’re going to come up with that money, and it’s dereliction of duty to the people who are electing them to ignore the problem.
Biden’s Social Security answer is again, incoherent. He starts off talking about the current payroll tax cap (currently around $170k), then he talks about millionaires paying an extra 1 percent, then about how he won’t do anything to people earning under $400,000. Then says this will save Social Security. It makes no sense.
Biden seems to be responding more to Trump than Trump is to him. Trump has the initiative. It’s the campaign in miniature.
The phrase “the idea” is the mast which Joe Biden has desperately lashed his train of thought to in order to keep it together.
Forget the talk about replacing Biden. He will have the nomination buried with him like an Egyptian pharaoh.
Trump obviously smart to keep coming back to the border and immigration—opinion has shifted so far right on the issue, there’s almost nothing he can say that’s not going to sound credible to people.
“The idea…”