Democrats who are looking at the 2024 presidential campaign have not gotten
a very good boost of confidence in terms of cognitive abilities of both Joe Biden
and Vice President Kamala Harris over the past couple of days.
First, Vice President Harris on this day she was traveling along the demilitarized
zone between North and South Korea.
She stepped in front of a microphone and
a podium which was in front of a military helicopter and she said this, watch.
>> So the United States shares a very important relationship
which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea and
it is an alliance that is strong and enduring.
>> Actually has anybody with any sort of basic understanding of US foreign
policy understands North Korea is an adversary of the United States.
South Korea is the ally of the United States, so
Harris was visiting the DMZ just days after North Korea launched a couple
of ballistic missiles into to the East Sea.
The Vice [INAUDIBLE] president's flub followed just by one day a gaffe
by President Biden at the White House.
President Biden was speaking at a bipartisan White House conference on
hunger, nutrition and health, watch.
>> And I wanna thank all of you here for including bipartisan elected officials
like representative government, Senator Brown, Senator Booker,
Representative Jackie, you hear where's Jackie?
I didn't think she was going to be here.
>> Now that was a reference an unfortunate reference to
Indiana Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski,
she died in august in a car crash in Indiana.
At a White House news briefing ABC news reporter Cecilia Vega asked Biden
spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre about the president's mistake.
>> What happened in the hunger event today?
The president appeared to look around for an audience member,
a member of congress who passed away last month.
He seemed to indicate she might be in the room.
>> So the president was, as you all know you guys were watching today's event,
a very important event on food insecurity.
The president was naming the congressional champions on this issue and
was acknowledging her incredible work.
He had already planned to welcome the congresswoman's
family to the White House on Friday.
There will be a bill signing in her honor this coming Friday.
So, of course, she was on his mind.
She was on top of mind for the president.
>> One reporter noted that John Lennon was on the top of his mind each day, but
that did not mean the reporter was looking around for John Lennon in the room.
Well, the White House spokesperson dismissed the criticism, of course,
and and the the criticism of Joe Biden here was also dismissed sort of
by a member of the late congresswoman's family.
Keith Walorski according to the New York post,
one of the deceased lawmaker's two brothers is preparing to visit
the White House on Friday with his mother and one of his sisters close friends.
It's par for the course, Walorski told the post of Biden's bizarre gaffe.
I feel sorry for him really, he made a phone call after my sister was killed and
he was very sincere in his relaying the grief process because he's
been through that grief process.
He knows all about it, Keith Walorski added all I'm saying right now, but
the president is bless his heart for trying.
Yeah, it was a big mess up today, inexcusable?
No, unforgivable?
No, I'm not gonna hold it against him, I just feel sorry for him.
Jake my view is that Joe Biden, even if he doesn't know what planet he's on,
he is preferable to most people, most democrats, certainly most people in this
country over a Donald Trump who has it totally together in his own mind.
However, I can understand the nervousness that a lot of democrats start to have and
they have had every time Joe Biden makes one of these gaffes.
And it certainly doesn't help when Kamala Harris who might be the heir apparent
is also sort of underscoring her lack of foreign policy experience.
>> I think those two slip ups are completely different.
I think Kamala Harris just misspoke, I don't think it's a big deal at all.
And mind you if you don't watch the interest regularly.
I am not a fan of Kamala Harris.
But you got to be fair to everybody, I don't think that has is an indication of
anything and if you're a republican criticizing or please.
Okay, that's hilarious because Donald Trump doesn't say it as a slip up.
He says it for real.
He says all the time he just said to Sean Hannity an interview a couple of days
ago that he loves Kim Jong Hun, the communist dictator of North Korea.
Not south Korea, North Korea.
And he says, I had love letters, he calls them love letters.
He says, quote, we fell in love.
So he means it.
So there's no Republican who's allowed to say one word about that slip up
because your dear leader actually loves that dictator, literally.
And I'm not the one who said it, Trump did, you could look it up,
you could see him on tape saying it.
I know nothing will convince you, that's by nut Trump.
Okay, so that's the republicans.
That's Kamala Harris another hand in the beginning, David I was going to just
dismiss it because look, I follow politics pretty religiously.
And honestly, I didn't hear about that car crash and I saw, I feel bad for her and
her family and all that, of course.
But was it like just a giant event like the hurricane Florida and Biden forgot it.
No, it was a small and that's what I was gonna say when I saw the headlines, but
then I read into the story and it turns out as you pointed out there.
He already called the family.
So, forgetting after you call the family,
that's a little bit different and it's a little bit tougher.
Okay, see we're honest here.
But at the same time, I don't like,
I think that the white house screwed it up by trying
to deflect, when all you gotta say is he forgot.
I don't think it's that big a deal that he forgot, I forget things.
And yeah, that's a tough one to forget since you made the call, right.
But it's not the end of the world if he forgot,
look guys do I think that Biden is perfectly mentally sharp.
No, I haven't thought that for a long time.
And I've said it, we're honest about it at the same time Donald trump's
two blithering moron who was never sharp to begin with and
is now just falling apart at the seams.
So, now if you say, hey, why don't we get something other than those two?
I say, yes please, please, I agree, I agree.
And you know why all the politicians are old, right.
Because the donors want return on investment and they want safe investments
and the older politicians have shown that they have sold out their whole lives.
So that's why they're safer investments.
They know Biden's gonna deliver for them, McConnell's gonna deliver for them, etc,
etc, both republicans and democrats.
So that's why we have politicians falling apart on television because the donors
like prop them up wheel them out, who cares?
Nothing is gonna fundamentally change, that's the only thing we care about.
So, that's why I think those two things are very different,
what do you think, David?
>> Well, a couple of things, I mean, to your point about Joe Biden having called,
the family before, from what I understand, I mean,
this president particularly likes to, I don't think he likes it.
But because he's got such experience with grief and mourning, he's very good at
showing empathy and sympathy to people who have lost loved ones.
And so, from what I've heard, President Biden calls families of people
who have lost loved ones words and politics or media or
governors or Secret Service, he makes these calls all the time.
So I can sort of understand he's made 500 of these calls over the last six months,
sure they start to sort of all perhaps sort of blend in.
The other part about it is, I'm sure he was told, by the way,
this is an event where here the following members of congress who were actively
looking at poverty and these issues on a bipartisan basis.
And maybe they didn't quite explain to him when they said,
in this congresswoman's family is gonna be here Friday.
Maybe he didn't either hear them say, you remember the congresswoman who died last
month or he just wasn't paying attention.
And he just in the moment, while he's going around, try sort of ad lib and
thank people, is Jackie here?
And so, I think it's sort of forgivable and
it shouldn't have been that big a deal.
But I also agree that if the White House and just said, look,
none of us are perfect.
The vice president has made hundreds of these phone calls and
he just got one confused, he got her mixed up with somebody else, cut us some slack.
That would be a more genuine response,
I think then, she was at the top of his mind.
>> Yeah, for example,
David just accidentally called Biden the vice president.
Does that mean that David has dementia?
No, he just slipped up for a second.
>> I do have dementia, early I will confess to that.
>> [LAUGH] So, and by the way, we're off prompter and Biden's off prompter.
And so, in that moment, can you slip up?
Of course, it's just a matter of whether there's a pattern, with Biden,
there is a little bit of a pattern.
Let's be honest about it, with Trump, there's a massive pattern.
The guy took a dementia test, didn't even realize it was a dementia test and
you should fail on that alone.
He's like, God, you start killing man woman Camera TV,
it's a dementia test you moron.
Anyway, one last thing.
Look, I'm gonna be a total Jake here, but he's searching for
Jackie to give her credit.
She passed away, so it's not about her, but she's a Republican and
that's classic Biden.
Where's the Republican?
I wanna give a bear hug to a Republican, I love Republicans.
I wanna give all the credit to the republicans, where are they?
God damn it, they died.
Okay, I wanna give credit to them anyway, just for
God's sake, stop giving credit to the guys you're calling semi fascist.
>> I agree, I mean, I just wish it would have been nicer to me.
I would have Biden rather taken some hits from Republicans for
not including any republicans on this event and just having a purely democratic
members of congress are the only ones who are helping him on this legislation.
So, he's sort of angry democrats by reaching across the aisle and
pretending that everybody sort of gets along.
And then of course, when he's reaching out to Republican and
he sort of underscores that maybe he's not all there all the time.
Which I think gives heartache to a lot of democratic donors and
activists are looking up at 2024 thinking, God, I wish it was somebody else.
Not just of course, Biden and of course, we certainly hope that Donald Trump
wouldn't run, but that was just somebody else on both sides.