Dem
51
GOP
49
So, the Biden campaign is slamming Donald Trump for being a criminal, and the Trump campaign is slamming Biden for letting crime rage out of control. There is one thing that both campaigns can agree upon, however, and that is that the cheese has slipped off the other party's candidate's cracker.
In what sure looks like a classic case of "he doth protest too much, methinks," it is actually Trump who is most aggressive in pushing this particular narrative. Over the weekend, during an appearance in Detroit, the former president demanded that Biden take a cognitive test prior to their debate (and don't be terribly surprised if Trump uses that, or some other flimsy excuse, to back out). On top of that, the Trump campaign put out a video this weekend taken from Biden's high-dollar Hollywood fundraiser:
The video is on Rumble, which is not only full of racists, but is also not very well programmed. So, that embedded version may not work. If so, then the link above ("a video") will take you to the site so you can watch, if you wish. Alternatively, the title of the video tells the tale: "Biden Has To Be Coaxed and Led Off Stage By Obama At Mega Fundraiser."
But while the video is legitimate, it's taken aggressively out of context. To use Internet parlance, it's not a "deepfake," but it is a "cheapfake." If all you see is the last 40 or so seconds, accompanied by a very leading description, it does maybe look like Biden lost himself and had to be helped by Obama. It is also instructive that the three outlets that have given the misleading clip the most attention are Fox, The New York Post and Sky News Australia. Probably just a coincidence that all three outlets are, or were, owned by Rupert Murdoch, right?
If you see the full sequence, by contrast, it's clear that Biden was acknowledging the crowd for a couple of minutes while Obama receded into the background. Then Obama came back on stage, and he and Biden left together. We can't find an embeddable version of the full clip, but you can watch it on eX-Twitter here, or you can read a commentary about the two different versions of the video here.
Meanwhile, with the same exact breath that he used this weekend to demand that Biden take a cognitive test, Trump bragged about his own test results (recall that it was a very basic skills test, and nothing to brag about) and then suggested that the same doctor, "Doc Ronny Johnson" should be the one to administer a test to Biden. It's Ronny Jackson, of course, not Ronny Johnson. And it didn't take long for the Biden campaign to pounce, posting both the footage and a paraphrasing of Trump's remarks on on eX-Twitter and other social media platforms.
The irony of making a cognitive error while in the midst of attacking someone else for poor cognition is thick but, beyond that, we don't actually think this is a big deal. High-profile politicians have to remember lots of names, and are entitled to botch one every once in a while. Further, "Jackson" and "Johnson" are pretty similar, and there actually is a Ronny Johnson (well, a Ron Johnson) that Trump interacts with on a regular basis, namely the senior U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.
On the other hand, it may not get a fraction of the attention, but we do think the remarks that Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh shared yesterday on Morning Joe ARE a big deal:
[T]he other thing that I think is really interesting, because I really got to know Donald Trump post-presidency, and I got to see what he was like. And over the weekend, he was talking about how Joe Biden needs to take a cognitive test. Joe Biden, you know, "isn't all there." Donald Trump had severe memory issues. As the journalist who spent the most time with him, I have to say, he couldn't remember things. He couldn't even remember me. We spent an hour together in 2021, in May, and then a few months later, I went back to the White House, I went back to Trump Tower to talk to him about his time in the White House. And I said, he had this vacant look on his face. And I said, Do you remember me?" And he said, "No." He had no recollection of our lengthy interview that we had, and he wasn't doing a lot of interviews at that time. So I think that the American public really needs to see this portrait of Donald Trump, because this shows what he is like and who he is and who he has always been.
Setoodeh has a new book, Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, so he has some basis for the claims he makes. It's certainly possible that he is motivated to launch some slings and arrows in hopes of getting attention for the book, or that he's politically biased. But there are so many people who have spent time in close proximity to Trump, and have come away with tales like this one. At some point, there's gotta be some fire behind all that smoke, right? (Z)