Jake Tapper might not like the fact that Joe avoids the Sunday shows.
But it’s clear his campaign is keeping him on a short leash for a reason.
Over the weekend, CNN’s Jake Tapper criticized Joe Biden for refusing to appear on any of the Sunday shows before today’s Iowa Caucus. Sure. I get it. On eve of the first votes in the nation, you would think Biden would be out there making the case for himself. But to me it isn’t at all surprising that Team Biden is keeping such a tight lid on their hot-head candidate.
If the last few months have taught us anything, it’s that Joe is a veritable powder keg. And it doesn’t take much for him to blow.
Just this morning, Hot-Head Joe got angry with the Today Show’s Savannah Guthrie when she had the gall to bring up Biden’s “Snortunate Son” Hunter (thanks for the nickname, Kurt Schichter).
It’s been months now, and still the Biden Campaign hasn’t come up with an effective response for the inevitable Hunter questions. And that is a real head-scratcher to me.
.@JoeBiden snaps at @SavannahGuthrie after she asks about Hunter Biden: “You’re saying things you don’t know what you’re talking about!” pic.twitter.com/4O4LmLNenb
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 3, 2020
But it certainly explains why they’re keeping a tight lid on this guy.
When their candidate is a hot-head who loses his cool all too easily, can you blame Team Biden for minimizing how many live interviews Joe gives?
Now, I’m old enough to remember how much of a hot-head Joe was back in the late 80s when he first ran for President The finger-jabbing, the shouting down reporters – this didn’t come on all of sudden over the last year. He’s always had a short fuse.
But this time around, that short fuse has gotten much shorter.
Part of it is the Hunter stuff really gets under his skin.
And no doubt another part of it is Joe’s advancing years. Clearly he isn’t the kind of person who mellows with age.
But it’s more than that.
As I said last week, I really think Joe expected to inherit that kid-glove treatment from the press that his boss Obama got. Heaven knows he too benefited from it during the Obama years. And I’m certain he thought it would continue today.
But now the gloves have come off. And I think Joe is slowly realizing that, sans Obama, the press won’t be acting as his personal fluffers. And his frustration over that only grows more intense with every interview.
On top of that, Joe tends to say things in the heat of anger that cannot be unsaid.
So while most Americans don’t mind our feckless news media getting rhetorically slapped around, his unpredictability and volatility make live interviews with Hot-Head Joe too much of a crap-shoot.
Put that all together and you can understand why his campaign people have Joe on a short leash.
Imagine having to keep such a tight lid on a hot-head like Joe Biden. I’m thinking it must be incredibly exhausting for his campaign team.
And I suspect that if Joe loses not only Iowa and New Hampshire, but South Carolina as well, his team will urge him to make a hasty exit from the race.
If for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable on-camera thermonuclear explosion that is bound to happen when Hot-Head Joe realizes his final attempt at the Presidency ain’t gonna happen.