Joe Biden Tripped Up Badly by Running Mate Question... 'I'm Having a 2-Hour, Uh, Um, Vetting Report'
Far-left Democrats will be too far gone to listen, but Joe Biden’s appearance on MSNBC Monday night should have been a warning to the rest of America.
If the former vice president botches his words under conditions where everything is set up in his favor, how can anyone expect him to perform when the going really gets tough?
The answer was on full display for the inaugural episode of “The ReidOut,” and it wasn’t what any American really wanted to see.
For a Democratic presidential aspirant, the stage couldn’t have been better:
The network was MSNBC, the leftiest of the liberal media that passes for “mainstream” these days. It’s a welcoming environment for any candidate willing to oppose President Donald Trump, much less the man who’s trying to unseat him outright.
The host was Joy Reid, an unapologetic liberal who scored a coup by landing Biden as her first “get” as a prime-time performer (replacing the ex-MSNBC star and now-disgraced Chris Matthews).
Yet Biden still couldn’t manage to answer Reid’s question about his potential running mate on the Democratic ticket in November without seeming to confirm the suspicions about his mental decline that have been building since his gaffe-filled days on the campaign trail before the coronavirus confined him to his basement.
“Have you narrowed down your choices?” Reid asked.
The response started cogently enough (if the “physical examination” part was a little odd), but got lost in a word salad.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Liz Harrington caught part of it for a Twitter post.
“I’m having a 2 hour uh um vetting report from the lawyers and women and men of color as well as white um folks who are doing the vetting…”
Joe Biden is having a hard time speaking woke
Ridiculous. Here’s a novel idea: Picking who’s best for the job
It clearly isn’t Biden! pic.twitter.com/QpUTB72Eqr
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) July 21, 2020
“I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Biden told Reid. “We’re getting the detailed analysis that has done. I’ve been through one of these vets, as they say. It takes about six weeks and you go into everything, it’s like having a public physical examination.
“That is just being finished. I’m having a two-hour, uh, uhm, vetting report from the lawyers, and women and men of color, as well as white folks who are doing the vetting, uhm, and, uh, we’ve gone through about four candidates so far, and the two-hour vetting.
“And then when I get all the vetting done of all the candidates, then I’m going to narrow the, uh, the list, and then we’ll see, and then I’m going to have personal discussions with each of the candidates who are left.
What’s interesting about this – aside from Biden’s evident uncertainty that would make a junior toastmaster blush – is that earlier in the interview, when Reid pressed him to commit to naming a black woman as his running mate, he sounded much more confident.
The difference is almost certainly rehearsal. Anyone can sound competent reciting memorized lines – as Biden pretty clearly was doing when he was talking about his traditional support among black women.
But when it came to a question that required a modicum of spontaneity (though it had to have been expected) Biden still managed to flub it.
The fact that this man is a potential president of the United States clearly bothered a lot of social media users:
So anyone wonder what the story is with Joe Biden’s wife & kids? Who lets their husband and father be subject to this? We all can see the poor man is ill. We can make all the jokes we want but he’s in no condition to run for Presidency and definitely not run a Country.
— ??My Scottie Supports Trump Too ??♥️⭐️? (@Vannamaria6) July 21, 2020
Democrats best Presidential candidate. Omg!
— Manolo Motos (@nolimotos) July 21, 2020
This is so sad ? There is no way he is fit to be President. And his wife needs to stop him from running and save him from making a fool of himself.
— Charis Megill (@coffeegirl_77) July 21, 2020
40 years in politics and he can’t even say a sentence
— ALM (@Daveinwi4trump) July 21, 2020
That last tweet – “40 years in politics and he can’t even say a sentence” – is telling.
For good or ill, Biden has been a part of American politics for the memory of most Americans who will be voting in the 2020 election – and it’s a simple fact that the one-time senator from Delaware who became the vice president has never been an embarrassment as a public speaker.
Biden critics have called him a genius – former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates memorably said the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
But this kind of embarrassment — “vetting report from the lawyers, and women and men of color, as well as white folks who are doing the vetting, uhm, and, uh …” — is new.
And considering Biden is seeking the position of the most powerful man in the world, it’s alarming.
The president has a dangerous world to face.
And it’s unlikely that the hard men in Moscow working for Vladimir Putin, the Chinese minions of Xi Xinping, or the murderous mullahs of Tehran are going to be as understanding of Biden’s foibles as Joy Reid.
Committed Democrats, victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and, of course, the majority of American political correspondents are too far gone to really pay attention to what happened on MSNBC on Monday night.
But the rest of America should take the warning signs that are being offered.
Electing a figurehead to the presidency means whatever follows is going to be much, much worse.
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