Stephanopoulos Says It Right to Psaki: Majority of Americans 'Question the President's Mental Capacity'
As President Joe Biden gears up for his first State of the Union speech on Tuesday, even friendly media are starting to question whether the elderly leader, highly prone to gaffes, confusion, and muddled speech, is up for such a lengthy address.
Of course, if he’s not up for a simple speech, we have to infer he’s not up to running the country, although George Stephanopoulos certainly didn’t go that far.
He did, however, address the president’s mental capacity flat-out on Sunday during an interview with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, which is certainly worthy of note.
Stephanopoulos, who currently plays an objective reporter on TV, is a longtime Democratic operative who was an advisor and White House communications director for former President Bill Clinton.
Speaking with Psaki, the two focus mostly on the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s security and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “mental stability.”
As for Biden’s “mental capacity,” Psaki demurred from answering outright … or rather, at all whatsoever.
Stephanopoulos noted that the State of the Union comes at a time when the public has a historically low opinion of the president’s job performance … and cognitive function.
Biden “is approaching his State of the Union in a pretty difficult political position right now, 37 percent approval rating, Democrats trailing badly in the midterm polling,” he said to Psaki.
“A majority in our recent poll out this morning even question the president’s mental capacity,” he continued.
“How is he going to turn that around on Tuesday night? And how much has his State of the Union been changed by this war in Ukraine?” he asked.
George Stephanopoulos confronts Jen Psaki about a disastrous new Biden poll that shows a majority of Americans “question the president’s mental capacity” pic.twitter.com/ws9E8jt8b9
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 27, 2022
He certainly gave Psaki a rather wide berth with which to avoid addressing the poll to which he alluded, which Fox News noted was conducted by ABC and the Washington Post and found that 54 percent of Americans do not think that President Biden has the mental sharpness to serve in office.
As it happens, avoiding the poll is exactly what Psaki did.
“Well, George, I think there’s no question that, in the State of the Union, the American people and anybody watching around the world will hear the president talk about the efforts he has led over the past several months to build a global coalition to fight — fight against the autocracy and the efforts of President Putin to invade a foreign country,” she said. “That is certainly something that is present in all of our lives and certainly in the president’s life in this moment.”
So, the president’s speechwriters plan on making him sound like he cares about Ukraine. Wow.
“But what people will also hear from President Biden is his optimism and his belief in the resilience of the American people and the strength of the American people,” she continued.
“And you know, George, from covering State of the Unions for some time, that — that it is about delivering a message to the public at a moment in time,” she went on, clearly having opted to steadfastly avoid the topic of the president’s mental acuity.
“And if you look back when President Obama gave his first State of the Union, it was during the worst financial crisis in a generation. When President Bush gave his first State of the Union, it was shortly after 9/11,” she continued.
“Leaders lead during crises. That’s exactly what President Biden is doing. He’ll speak to that, but he’s also going to speak about his optimism about what’s ahead and what we all have to look forward to,” she concluded.
Stephanopoulos offered no objection to her complete avoidance of the president’s polling numbers and the public’s confidence in his mental fitness and cordially closed the interview at that point.
Here’s the thing: While Psaki successfully skirted the problematic query, the fact that she had nothing more than this non-answer rather takes away from her claims that we can have confidence in President Biden at this critical juncture in history.
Sure, his speechwriters have a great, propagandistic message planned, but it speaks far louder than any of the words he might have to offer that his own press secretary doesn’t even have an answer to why the public thinks he’s lacking mental sharpness.
Biden’s cognitive health has been addressed exhaustively by critics and more than once by other media figures who wonder why he so often appears to display signs of mental decline. He mumbles, loses his train of thought, lashes out angrily at reporters, and forgets all sorts of critical details such as the names of entire federal agencies and the people he’s tasked to lead them — which has actually happened. Multiple times, in the case of forgetting the names of his cabinet secretaries.
He gets countries and foreign leaders mixed up, tells bizarre, nonsensical, debunked stories over and over again, consistently avoids the press like the plague, has tripped going up stairs, wanders around aimlessly … these are just a few examples.
It’s a disaster.
This is the guy who has the nuclear codes … and it’s never been more important that the American public has confidence that the guy who has the nuclear codes is mentally fit for office, now that Russia is playing chicken with the full military might of the western allies.
Even the incredibly Biden-friendly Stephanopoulos realized that the administration needed to be pressed on this — and yet didn’t get an answer.
Who cares if his staffers craft him a nice, comforting speech? Who cares if he even manages, somehow, to pull it off without zoning out or treating us to yet another embarrassing teleprompter gaffe?
The people want to know if he’s got what it takes to actually be the president, and that’s precisely what his own press secretary can’t tell us.
Yikes.
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