We’re seeing the importance of what a candidate does when he’s not speaking. A candidate ought to look at his opponent, and when he’s getting his attacked, shake his head sadly. (In his debates, Mitt Romney used to have a perfect, faux-sympathetic, ‘you poor man, I hope you get the mental health treatment you so desperately need’ expression.) Biden is staring at the floor, shifting his weight, his mouth hanging open in a look of dopey confusion. It’s terrible. Once in a while, Biden will flash a scoffing laugh. But he’s a shadow of the “malarkey!” shouting, laughing, larger-than-life persona that he showed in his debate with Paul Ryan back in 2012.
“I have the biggest heart on this stage. I guarantee you that.” – Donald Trump
“The only existential threat to humanity is climate change.” – Joe Biden
Trump: “We had H2O”
I’m going out on a limb to say we had that before.
Biden talked about 15 percent unemployment and “the economy on its back” when he took over, but that is simply not the case. Unemployment peaked at 14.8 percent in April 2020, at the height of lockdowns, but had more than halved to 6.4 percent in January 2021, when Biden took office.
Joe Biden is correct that the economic bounceback from Covid and inflation are connected. But, weirdly, it was the long, slow economic recovery under Obama that didn’t include inflation which makes his claim that jobs and inflation go up together seem obviously wrong.
Biden’s “there was no inflation because the economy was terrible under Trump” argument (1) sounds like a workshopped talking point; (2) is therefore one of the stupidest strategic political decisions anyone could ever intentionally make.
Biden makes no sense on inflation.
When Trump is on offense, he’s been stellar. He has one sentence, sometimes two, that are crisp, focused, and devastating. By the third sentence, however, the former president departs from the script and riffs extemporaneously, which dilutes the point he is trying to make. He is better served lobbying those rehearsed lines at Biden and allowing the incumbent to stammer his way into a cul-de-sac.
“There was no inflation when I became president” is quite the admission from Biden.