Speaker 1: Let's talk today not about Joe Biden's accomplishments, but about the lack of scandal.
One of the reasons that it is increasingly a focus of the right wing to talk about Joe
Biden's age and supposed crimes for which they can never find any evidence, is because of the total
and complete absence of actual scandals from Joe Biden's presidency so far. There's an article by,
or a commentary in which Furman University politics professor Danielle Vinson has talked
about this and said the focus on Joe Biden's age is because there have been no real scandals in
his administration. We're going to have likely a rematch in 2024 of the 2020 election. Since that
election, Joe Biden has had a completely scandal free presidency, and Trump has been charged in
four criminal trials with 91 felony counts, has been found civilly liable of rape and defamation
fraud in New York, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. And so in that environment,
which is obviously a disaster for Donald Trump, they have to fabricate something. And what they're
fabricating is O. Biden crimes. And Biden is old. Now, I want to think through this issue
of scandal, because we have a situation right now where there isn't the tumult and the drama
and the genuine scandal of past administrations. And we'll look at Obama, we will look at Trump.
And so what you end up with in the absence of scandal is a sense of stability and a sense of,
narratives that, in an ideal world, comport more closely to the facts. And what we have today with
Joe Biden's lack of scandal is a situation where the right is grasping at straws, generating and
constructing and fabricating rather than simply reporting what is, for example, the charge that
Biden is involved in crimes that involve him as a sort of mob leader figure there is money
from China and influence peddling and criminal bribery. None of it, after years of investigation,
has led to any substantiated proof. And it's a really poignant example of the total lack
of scandal that exists in reality, and what they have to fabricate. The smaller the real scandal,
the more hard to believe in absurd. The trumped up fake scandals become. So the Republican Party
is not focusing on policy disagreements with Joe Biden. They're not even really focusing
on ideological ideological differences other than every once in a while hurling socialist
as an insult at Joe Biden. They are trying to tarnish the reputation of the administration,
either through guilt by association when it comes to Hunter Biden, or just simply unfounded
accusations stuff that they are making up. Yes, it undermines the political discourse, but it also
diverts attention from the policy accomplishments of Joe Biden, which I've explained many times.
It's all they have. It's not a great strategy, but it's all they have. We then get the stories that
they tell about the economy. Not only is there an absence of scandal under Joe Biden, we have
an economy that, by all reasonable assessments, is pretty good. Donald Trump predicted in 2020 that
if Joe Biden becomes president, we would see a recession. 1929 style stock market crash, horrible
stuff. What happened is the opposite unemployment rates are consistently and persistently low. The
stock market is hitting record highs almost every week. Many sectors have completely rebounded from
their pandemic induced downturns. It is true that although inflation is down, prices are
still much higher than they were years ago because inflation is still positive, right? When inflation
comes down, prices are still going up, just not by as much. Supply chain disruptions are still
affecting a number of interest industries, and it has generated hurdles. Biden's doing what he can
to deal with that. And he's being proactive rather than reactive. But because that is the status
of the economy, they have to go to fabricating fake scandals. Now, critics could say that when
you highlight the absence of a scandal, you are cheerleading for Joe Biden, merely cheerleading
for Joe Biden. What I'm doing is acknowledging facts that are about promoting reality and truth
over hyperbole and conjecture. And there were a number of scandals under prior presidents,
including Democratic presidents, and they can be seen. Alongside accomplishments and policy
failures. What it happens to be the reality of what it happens to be under Biden is no scandals
and a bunch of pretty good accomplishments, as well as the desire from the progressive left
like me, to see Biden do more. So what I would, of course, love to see as we approach the 2024
election is for Republicans to come forward and really just focus on the policy of Biden that they
disagree with. The problem is, the disagreements that they have tend to be vague, often
unsubstantiated, and completely counter to what the majority of the American people seem to want.
So let's look at some prior presidents to kind of contextualize this. Even under Barack Obama,
there was no shortage of criticism, right? There was policy I didn't like under Barack Obama, the
scale up of drone warfare, for example. The not going far enough in terms of moving the economy in
the direction of some of the successful policies we've seen implemented in socially democratic
countries like those in Northern Europe, Sweden, Denmark, etc., but scandals under Obama, I mean,
it's mostly nonsense. I'll build up to what I consider closer to maybe a real criticism,
but you had the tan suit controversy with Obama, where he wore a tan suit on a day where he was
discussing serious matters and the tan suit didn't communicate seriousness. You had the infamous
latte salute where Barack Obama saluted a marine, and in his saluting hand he had a coffee cup and
it was viewed as disrespectful. You had Mustard gate where Barack Obama was mocked for requesting
Dejan at dinner. Obama. Right. And Dijon is tantamount to elitism. Real Americans use,
I guess, yellow mustard or something like that. It completely trivett trivial you had in terms of
what they really tried to generate as a scandal, the birther birth certificate stuff. It was not
trivial in its implications. Right? Imagine if it were true that the person who was president was
not legally eligible to be president. That would be a big deal. But it was based on nothing other
than Barack Obama's skin color. And even Donald Trump jumped in on that. And then in terms of,
you know, the Solyndra loan controversy, not everybody may remember this, but the
Obama administration was criticized because the Department of Energy made a $500 million loan
guarantee to Solyndra to solar panel company. The company later went bankrupt, and people on
the right were raising questions about vetting processes for loan guarantees. Ultimately, there
was no wrongdoing. The company just went bankrupt. And the truth is that those moneys were used to
fund a bunch of companies. And now, in the context of the abortive slush fund that was administered
under Trump, the Solyndra thing seems so mild. And then lastly, the Fast and Furious operation. This
was this ATF operation, which was intended to track guns from the US that make it into
Mexico. The idea was to use it to capture drug lords. The guns were lost, and one gun was used
in the murder of an American border agent. The operation had flaws. There was no substantiated
cover up by the Obama administration, which is what they went after him for. So under Obama,
there was also kind of a notable lack of scandal. But it's even more significantly notable the total
absence of scandals under Biden. I'll come back to Afghanistan in a moment for those who are thinking
of that. And then, I mean, listen, under Trump, multiple impeachments over serious wrongdoing,
the first one for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the second one with incitement of
insurrection over January 6th, 2021. You had the Russia stuff where, yes, we didn't get video of
Trump and Russia plotting together. I don't know who was expecting that. But significant Russian
efforts to influence the election, Trump's handling of classified information, both
while in office and immediately after this, goes back to 2017, with Russians in the Oval Office
later post-presidency waving classified documents around the hush money payments directly related to
his campaign involving Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. The Ukraine scandal,
which was central to Trump's first impeachment. Trump soliciting Ukraine to investigate Joe
Biden. The Trump Foundation ordered shut down and dissolved over using those donated funds
as a slush fund. The family separation policy at the US-Mexico border, a authoritarian attempt to
silence media. He didn't like the travel. Band fiasco, the Puerto Rico hurricane response,
firing James Comey to stop the investigation into him. That horrible Lafayette Square photo
incident where police cleared it so Trump could take a picture with a Bible trying to steal the
2020 election, inciting a riot on January 6th, allegedly committing 91 crimes. I could go on
Covid response. And so the the scandal that was rampant under Trump is gone under Biden. Now,
let me talk about Afghanistan. I've said before, the withdrawal from Afghanistan that Joe Biden
executed was the same one that Trump was promising to execute, except he didn't do it. Was it
chaotic? It was. And I don't know how it wouldn't be after ten, after 20 years in Afghanistan,
Trump now says. Remember, for months, Trump said Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan was
a disaster. When he was asked, what would you have done differently? He didn't really say.
Eventually, Trump started to articulate well, I would have taken our equipment. I wouldn't have
left our equipment, and nobody would have died. A number of servicemember died. Service members
died during the withdrawal. Trump says nobody would have died if I was in charge. We have no
real reason to think Trump would have done it any differently, because he's saying it now, with the
benefit of hindsight of how Biden did it. It was the right decision to get out. It was destined
to be chaotic, but it certainly doesn't count as a scandal, that's for sure. So again, if we zoom
out, good economy, no major scandals and a rematch of 2020 with a Trump as the Republican candidate
most likely, who is significantly weaker, I would argue, than 2020. All of that looks good for Joe
Biden, but nothing is guaranteed. His approval rating isn't exactly titillating, and every single
one of us has to go out and vote if we want to ensure that the right outcome takes place. Am I
missing a genuine, bona fide Joe Biden scandal? Let me know. Info at David pakman.com, or leave
a comment on our YouTube channel, which you can find at youtube.com. Slash The David Pakman Show.
If I am genuinely missing a Joe Biden scandal, I will come to you tomorrow with tears in my eyes
and hat in hand and say, I'm so sorry. Here's the Biden scandal that I missed. Let me know.