With nine months left until the presidential election, the Democrats pretty much have no choice but to go all in with Joe Biden. If there was ever going to be an opportunity for Joe Biden to drop out of the race and let all the Democrats waiting in the wings to run for president duke it out, that has passed.
The media, as expected, has done everything possible to boost Biden, including endless coverage insisting that the economy is in great shape and ignoring his mental decline.
However, during an episode of CNN This Morning this week, the typically reliably pro-Biden network quietly admitted something significant about Biden. During a discussion about Biden's decision not to participate in the traditional presidential Super Bowl interview, Bloomberg senior Washington correspondent Saleha Mohsin suggested that his declining mental health might be the reason—and that didn't get any pushback from the panel.
"I think I'm in the minority on our team in that I am convinced there will be debates," CNN host Phil Mattingly said. "And I don't see any way there is not. Am I wrong?"
“Look, since 2016, everything we were convinced of we need to throw out. Maybe it will happen; it will happen for different reasons than it used to. What’s interesting, though, is that President Joe Biden said 'no' to the traditional "60 Minutes" interview before the Super Bowl,” Mohsin said. “And to me, him saying no to something that he’s expected to do, a serious interview, he can really get his message out to an audience, just sitting, waiting for him, waiting for his message, is telling. Is it because he can’t handle it?”
“And he just did the interview with Scott Pelley less than a year ago for ’60 Minutes,’" CNN’s Poppy Harlow pointed out. "Do you have any sense of why [Biden is a] 'No' on this one at such a crucial moment?”
“I have no idea. I mean, just look at that clip we just saw," Mohsin pointed out. "If he is not able to follow the questions, if his staff is worried that he cannot connect the dots and find the word that he’s looking for, that’s a problem."
Mattingly didn't dispute her point.
"I think my question to that point is, given the fact that those are issues that show up in poll after poll after poll—age is something that shows up in poll after poll after poll; if you don't debate, doesn't that just exacerbate that problem?"
"Absolutely," former Republican strategist and pollster Lee Carter agreed. "And the narrative is already there."
Despite Mattingly's observation that refusing to debate Trump would exacerbate the perception that Biden can't handle debating him, Biden has indicated that he doesn't intend to face off against Trump, and some Democrats are actually advising him not to—though they won't admit the real reason why.
“I would think twice about it,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said last month. “I’ve been physically present at one of [Trump’s] debates with Hillary Clinton, and I watched him do outrageous things and say outrageous things. It’s just an opportunity for him to display his extremism."
We all know that's a bogus excuse. If Durbin were concerned about Trump's "extremism," he would welcome the opportunity for Biden to contrast that. Even CNN seems to get that.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member