Why 'Joe Has a Cold' Sounds So Familiar

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

They've been lying his entire presidency, and Joe Biden's debate disaster on Thursday night outed them. Now they're terrified that the public has caught them. 

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This is how it worked: during Joe Biden's debate disaster, panicky Team Biden columnists, anchors, and spinmeisters quickly disseminated to key reporters that Joe "has a cold." Or, as Karine Jean Pierre put it the next day, "Obviously, during the debate, we were asked if the president has a cold. We — we said — well, they would — we were asked about his hoarse voice. We shared that he had a cold, we shared that he tested negative, and then we moved on. That's it." Well, obviously.

Sure, when a president loses his marbles in front of the entire country in real-time, my first question as a reporter is, "Hmm, I wonder if he 'has a cold.' I think I'll call KJP and ask if he 'has a cold.'" 

Nobody wondered if he had a cold. They wondered why the guy they've been covering for since campaign 2020 talked like a blithering idiot when the administration assured them he was just fine. They were ordered to report that this debate debacle was nothing more than a case of the sniffles. 

And still, KJP was still trying to make fetch happen.

So — okay, step back for a second. So, yes, and I think we shared this with many people yesterday. The president had a cold; he had a sore throat. That happens. And — and that’s what you heard last night. And, you know, I’ll — I’ll leave it there. I don’t have anything else to add. I think Michael covered a lot of this just moments ago. But, yes, he had a cold. He had a sore throat. Once he knew that he — he had a cold and a sore throat, he tested — he certainly tested for COVID. It was negative. And then we moved on from there. 

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The "cold" was mentioned 16 times in the White House press briefing the next day. 

Do you know who else had colds? Soviet leaders had lots and lots of colds. Boris Yeltsin was deathly ill but had a "cold" right before he croaked. Leonid Brezhnev was a physical mess but caught a case of the sniffles before leaving this mortal coil. Konstantin Chernenko disappeared from the Kremlin after suffering a "cold." 

Now Joe has a cold. 

A 1997 Time Magazine piece reminds 2024 Americans that this "has a cold" business has a long and storied legacy in the Soviet Union. 

The Kremlin has a credibility problem when it comes to presidential health. The first time officials announced Yeltsin had a head cold, while he was running for re-election in the summer of 1996, it turned out to be a loose synonym for a near fatal heart attack. For the rest of the year, he was prostrate and the country was paralyzed. A multiple-bypass operation in November 1996 seemed to bring a miracle recovery. Then two months later, Yeltsin came down with another “cold”–this time, his aides said, the result of a post-sauna chill. This cold quickly metamorphosed into pneumonia and two more months of anxiety, political stagnation and fruitless discussion about the presidential succession. [emphasis added]

Now go back to that quote and replace the word "Kremlin" with White House, replace Yeltsin with Biden, and "officials" with Ron Klain and Barack Obama.

Zee Pahty's political minders sent out the talking points to their minions, but on debate night, when Joe couldn't finish a sentence, they knew they couldn't cover for him anymore. Biden had been cramming, prepping, resting, and taking concoctions and infusions for a week to get ready for the prime-time debate, but President Calling-A-Lid at 10 a.m. still couldn't handle a 90-minute TV exchange with Team Biden moderators. 

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Legacy news outlets, like American Pravda's Joe Scarborough and Izvestia's Joy Reid were busted. They couldn't pass off Joe's decline by dismissing it as a right-wing conspiracy theory any longer. They admitted, without using words, that they'd been lying to the American public about Joe Biden's health. Either that, or they are the dumbest people in America. Both can be true.

Just wait until they "find out" about Hunter Biden's laptop, Joe Biden's open border, the conspiracy to jail Trump, Joe's influence peddling, and who left cocaine at the White House. 

Recently in my Adult in the Room podcast, I asked Newsmax Chief White House correspondent James Rosen about the role of a White House reporter. "Isn't this like a baseball battery; they pitch and you catch?" I asked. His answer is revealing. 

He also talks about why KJP doesn't call on him anymore. 


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