Perhaps Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s new campaign slogan should be Silence is Golden.
The New York Post reported on Tuesday that President Trump has answered almost 900 more questions than Biden in the last two months.
Even worse, or better if you’re Biden and his media protectorate, the Democrat went dark for more than a week in late July and early August. No questions, no answers.
The obvious question here: Why aren’t the media grilling Biden about his key policies, if not the unspoken issue in the campaign: his mental acuity and whether he has dementia?
Sixty Days Of Silence
Trump, the Post reported, fielded 867 more questions from reporters than his 77-year-old rival, “five times the amount of queries that Biden answered between July 19 and Sept. 15.”
“Trump answered a total of 1,141 questions from a Washington press corps that he maintains is openly hostile to his administration, while Biden responded to just 274 questions from local networks and liberal cable news channels like CNN and MSNBC,” the newspaper continued.
Even worse, Biden said virtually nothing to reporters the week of August 9 when Trump handled 196 questions. Biden, again, answered three. So Trump answered about 65 times as many as Silent Joe.
Yet Biden’s three-question week in early August isn’t the nadir of his duck-the-media policy: “Biden took zero questions from reporters during an eight-day period in late July and early August, according to the data,” the Post reported:
After formally introducing Kamala Harris as his vice president on Aug. 12, the septuagenarian candidate sat for just one interview — with People magazine — over another nine-day period.
Even after significantly ramping up his travel following months of total isolation in his Delaware basement, the former vice president continues to spurn questions from reporters covering his events.
He denied he was “hiding” in his basement during a May interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, saying he was trying to set an example by staying at home amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The former senator, who overcame a stutter as a child, has admitted being a “gaffe machine,” and the bitter Democratic primary was checkered with Biden’s verbal fumbles, like when he called a female student a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.”
In June, he did it again, calling a reporter covering one of his events a “lying dog face.”
A Teleprompter and Confusion
Biden’s refusal to engage with the media suggests his mental acuity is quickly deteriorating.
Appearing at a virtual AFL-CIO event last week, Biden used a teleprompter to answer a question.
“Move it up here,” Biden sighed. The former veep appeared exhausted.
Biden paused to read the answer as it scrolled up the device.
Beyond that are verbal gaffes that go well beyond his usual garden-variety Bidenisms, such as his recent remarks that Hispanics, unlike blacks, are a diverse community with different views and cultures, and “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
Those comments are in keeping with his insulting remark about Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, or his amusing observations that one cannot enter a Dunkin Donuts store “unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
But what obviously worries campaign aides are the gaffes that aren’t, well, mere gaffes.
As The New American reported earlier today, Biden recently repeated the falsehood that he was the first member of his family to attend college, a claim that derailed his presidential bid in 1987.
In Pittsburgh in late August, he appeared completely befuddled when he uttered this nonsense:
COVID has taken this year, just since the outbreak, it’s taken more than 100 year — look — here’s — the lives — it’s just — [garbled] think about it — more lives this than any other year for the past 100 years.
This is why the Biden campaign doesn’t want him to leave his basement — this guy isn’t playing with a full deck and it is so irresponsible that the media covers this up… pic.twitter.com/HJ2dJI3jpx
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 1, 2020
He also confused his wife and his sister at a campaign rally .
The unfortunate truth that Biden is sliding into dementia, as even many Democrats believe, might be one reason he and his running mate, Kamala Harris, both slipped and openly discussed a Harris-Biden administration.
Harris blundered and described a “Harris Administration together with Joe Biden as president,” while Sundown Joe himself discussed a “Harris-Biden administration.”
Biden said he picked Harris because she is “ready to lead on day one.”
That means she’ll run things at The White House, while Sleepy Joe settles into a Lazy Boy in the family quarters with a cup of Postum to watch The View, then grabs a quick siesta before lunch and a hand or two of Spades with Jill.
Hat tip: Legal Insurrection
Graphic: Дмитрий Ларичев/iStock/Getty Images Plus
R. Cort Kirkwood is a longtime contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
