Did ABC News edit Joe Biden’s much-ballyhooed interview with George Stephanopoulos on Afghanistan to cover for the president’s senility? It’s an interesting proposition and one I raised yesterday while discussing an exchange that showed up on the transcript but not in the aired portions of the interview (see One Incoherent, Defensive Answer by Joe Biden to George Stephanopoulos Has People Talking).
Last night, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson picked up on the same idea, roasting Biden as senile and incompetent while wondering why ABC News isn’t releasing all the footage.
Carlson would go on to read the part of the transcript that my prior article dealt with, noting how little sense it made and how many glaring mistakes populated what was only a sub-30-second answer.
The question is why did ABC News cut that part out? Was Biden good and fully drooling at that point? Yes, it’s normal to cut down a presidential interview for TV viewing. It’s less normal to not release the rest of it online for people to see and absorb. I’d love to know what kind of deal was made with the White House in order to secure the interview in the first place. Was the administration given the right to strike certain parts?
That’s probably an answer we’ll never get as ABC News is rabidly left-wing and would never reveal the details. But as Carlson points out, given the severity of the situation right now, isn’t it improper to continue to hold certain parts of the interview back?
As bad as that transcript reads, it no doubt pales in comparison to how it appeared on video. Aside from the stammering nature of Biden’s speech, he couldn’t remember what branch of the military served it. He couldn’t remember his rank. He couldn’t remember where he served at. He couldn’t remember what he was doing while serving. This is not normal, especially given how much we know Biden cared for his son.
Why is the president unable to remember basic details, even about his personal life? Why is he hiding out and not taking questions about Afghanistan (no, that softball interview doesn’t count)? Why is he being whisked away to Delaware again after he speaks today?
The optics of all this are too much to ignore, and things have gotten so bad that I’m even seeing Never Trumpers state the obvious in their social media feeds.
We are well past the point of it being a “conspiracy theory” to wonder aloud whether the president is sick. Maybe it’s just senility brought on by old age. Maybe it’s something worse. Either way, he’s not fit for the job, and while Kamala Harris being president would be terrible, it’d be preferable to not having a president at all.