F**king Mondays: The Biden Freakout, Tucker's Bootlicking, And Trump's NATO Nastiness

Don't freak out!

Welcome to the latest edition of “F**king Mondays!” In the round up today:

Image: Pete Marovich for The New York Times

The Biden freakout

The fallout from special prosecutor Robert K. Hur’s assessment of President Biden’s cognitive abilities is creating huge amounts of uncertainty in Democratic circles. With headlines like this, it is entirely understandable:

Politico’s Monday headline.

It is important to acknowledge the reality — and gravity — of the situation Democrats are now in. President Biden’s age is a very serious problem heading into November, and Democrats do need a backup plan if his candidacy becomes untenable.

It is also important for Democrats not to freak out. If Biden stays in the race, he has a very good chance of beating Trump. Much was made of Biden’s age in 2020, so there’s no reason to suggest he can’t win again, particularly given the state of Trump’s campaign and the very high chance he could be convicted of a serious crime. Other than Hur’s depiction of Biden in his report, the view is almost unanimous amongst those who work with Biden — he is in fine form and can perform the duties of office at a high level. A New York Times investigation found last year that:

People who deal with him [Biden] regularly, including some of his adversaries, say he remains sharp and commanding in private meetings. Diplomats share stories of trips to places like Ukraine, Japan, Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia in which he often outlasts younger colleagues. Democratic lawmakers point to a long list of accomplishments as proof that he still gets the job done.

Here was Gen. Mark Milley confirming Biden’s ability to handle complex national security issues:

When contrasted with the mountains of evidence we have of Trump being functionally insane in private, and completely incapable of fulfilling his duties as president, it is no contest at all.

Unfortunately, this might not matter very much given the media’s astonishing ability to never hold Democrats and Republicans to the same standard. The perception is that Biden is too old, and perception in the American news media has an annoying tendency of becoming reality.

If Biden does decide not to run, whoever replaces him should be favorite to beat Trump too. There are some talented candidates with big name recognition who could hit the ground running (think Gavin Newsom or Josh Shapiro) if Biden decided to drop out after the primary is over. This would ease anxiety and potentially inject new enthusiasm into the party heading into November.

Both options are good ones, so rather than panic, Democrats need to back Biden while he’s still running, then back a replacement if he decides to drop out.

Timid Tucker

We discussed Tucker Carlson’s much hyped interview with Vladimir Putin on the podcast this past weekend before the interview was actually aired. Unsurprisingly, we predicted the nature and content of the interview almost entirely accurately. It was long, boring, and entirely devoid of any challenging questions from Carlson who basically sat back and allowed Putin to spew an astonishing litany of lies for over two hours.

The first 30 minutes were used by Putin to deliver an incredibly tedious history lesson to his guest based on the ludicrous premise that Ukraine never existed as a country — an assertion Carlson did not challenge or appear to know anything about. After that, Putin went on to claim America and Ukraine were responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that Russia wanted a peace settlement, and insinuated Jewish Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a Nazi. There are many articles out debunking this nonsense, but given Putin’s track record of extreme deception, no one should have taken it seriously to begin with.

As Carlson’s former Fox colleague Chris Wallace pointed out in the aftermath, it wasn’t so much what Carlson ask Putin, it’s what he didn’t.

“Tucker Carlson showed up in Moscow this week to interview Vladimir Putin. It turned out to be anything but an interview,” Wallace said on Saturday. “Putin droned on for two hours and seven minutes while Tucker sat there like an eager puppy. Occasionally, but rarely, he got in a question.”

“But more telling than what Tucker asked is what he didn’t ask,” he went on. “Nothing about why Putin invaded a sovereign country, nothing about targeting civilians, nothing about Russian war crimes.”

Wallace is well placed to criticize given he interviewed Putin back in 2018 and asked the dictator: “Why is it that so many of the people that oppose Vladimir Putin end up dead or close to it?”

Carlson could have used the opportunity to ask Putin hard questions, but he didn’t because he had other motives — namely his own fame and a toxic propaganda war at home. Carlson views Putin as an ideological ally, a fellow nativist dedicated to spreading right wing disinformation. So he gave Putin a platform and humiliated himself in the process.

Trump’s NATO threat

One of the reasons why America’s democratic allies are terrified at the prospect of a Trump second term is that he will pull the US out of NATO. Without America leading the military alliance, Europeans fear Russia would become far more aggressive than it already is.

Trump managed to compound European fears this past weekend by telling NATO countries directly that he would urge Russia to invade them if they failed to pay their dues. Via Reuters:

During a political rally on Saturday in South Carolina, Trump complained about what he called "delinquent" payments by some NATO countries and recounted what he said was a past conversation with the head of "a big country" about an attack by Russia on such countries.

"No, I would not protect you. In fact I would encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay," Trump said he told the unnamed leader.

It is one thing to demand NATO countries pay their fair share, but another to explicitly call for Russia to attack them. Of course in Trump world, this is how business is done — you make threats until you get what you want.

This isn’t surprising in the least, but another reminder of why it is so important to keep Trump out of office by any means necessary.

See you next week!

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