Trump is 78 and barely coherent. Where’s everyone who questioned Biden’s age and fitness?

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Trump is 78 and barely coherent. Where’s everyone who questioned Biden’s age and fitness?

To the pundits and the Republicans who relentlessly decried President Joe Biden’s age, “cognitive decline” and “mental acuity” right up to the day he stepped aside in the presidential race, allow me to unspool a recent quote

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.

He was responding to a question about “what specific piece of legislation” he would advance to make child care more affordable:

“It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that – because, look, child care is child care. It’s – couldn’t – you know, it’s something – you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to, but they’ll get used to it very quickly – and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much ******* than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care. That – it’s going to take care – we’re going to have – I – I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short ******* of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and ****** and all of the other things that are going on in our country.”

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Former President Donald Trump campaigns for reelection on Sept. 07, 2024, in Mosinee, Wis.

That’s as much as I can quote here, but

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. Child care is child care? Tariffs are going to make child care costs go away?

There’s nothing about legislation in that word eruption. There are barely any complete sentences.

Trump’s bizarre rants get sanitized. Biden got no such special treatment.

If Biden, as the Democratic nominee, had gone on a rambling verbal tear like that, GOP lawmakers would be calling for him to be institutionalized and cable news panels would be discussing how the

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works.

But

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on Trump’s babble said this: “In a jumbled answer, he said he would prioritize legislation on the issue but offered no specifics and insisted that his other economic policies, including tariffs, would ‘take care’ of child care.”

Oh, c’mon. A 78-year-old convicted felon running for president rants nonsensically, demonstrating an inability to hold a thought or understand an important issue, and it’s deemed “a jumbled answer”?

Republicans are voting for Harris: ***** Cheney picks Kamala Harris, giving conservatives a final path to save their party from Trump

Trump spouts bizarre fantasies, so why isn’t his mental fitness an issue?

Trump has lately taken to telling

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are going to school and then, apparently during the day and without parental permission, being subjected to some form of gender-affirming surgery.

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: “Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this? What the ***** is wrong with out country?”

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*********** presidential nominee Donald Trump rallies his Wisconsin supporters in Mosinee on Sept. 7, 2024.

Nobody can imagine it, because it’s not a thing that’s happening in any way, shape or form. It’s several steps beyond ludicrous, and so clearly fabricated you have to wonder what other imaginary things the teller believes.

If a relative was convinced such a thing was happening, you’d rush them to a doctor.

A violent, lie-filled rant about immigrants? Trump seems unwell.

At his weekend rally in Wisconsin,

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, and he spun a dizzyingly dishonest tale about immigrants: “In Colorado they’re so brazen they’re taking over sections of the state. And you know, getting them out will be a ******* story. They should’ve never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them, nobody checked were they **********, were they from jails? We have them pouring out from jails. We have the worst ********** in all of these countries, 168 so far are registered, 168 countries. They’re in our country and they said if you come back you will be *********, you will be ******* immediately.”

Hoo boy. That’s a load of hot nonsense. It likely stems from

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about one apartment complex in Aurora being overrun by Venezuelan gangs ‒ again, debunked. But Trump concocts a violent fiction that includes the threat that his deportation effort will be “a ******* story.”

Trump’s hate speech: Trump knew Moms for Liberty was the perfect crowd for his hate speech. So he let it fly.

Where are the headlines screaming: “Deranged old man peddles nonsense while threatening violent deportation of immigrants”? Where are the feverish concerns about whether Trump, who if he wins will be

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, will have the mental capacity to finish out his term? Where are the calls for him to step aside?

They don’t exist. Even though Trump’s incoherence has grown markedly worse in recent months, he’s never scrutinized the way Biden was.

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News outlets are ‘sanewashing’ Trump’s unhinged speeches

Many news organizations are sanitizing Trump’s crazier and crazier comments.

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: “This ‘sanewashing’ of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former ‒ and potentially future ‒ president.”

That’s absolutely correct. Concerns about Biden’s age were legitimate, albeit wildly overreported. Concerns about Trump’s age and the ease with which he concocts paranoid fantasies are somewhere between muted and nonexistent.

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President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris campaign for her presidency in Pittsburgh on Sept. 2, 2024.

I implore you to watch Trump’s rallies and listen to him. He doesn’t make sense. He seems incapable of following any logical train of thought.

With only a couple months left before voters decide if this 78-year-old should be president, the ********* public deserves an unvarnished picture of Trump. Full quotes, no matter how unhinged.

Anything less ‒ from journalists, pundits or lawmakers ‒ is a calamitous lie.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:

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#Trump #barely #coherent #Wheres #questioned #Bidens #age #fitness

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