RCP reports:
TAPPER: Doesn't he deserve some credit for that? It's better, USMCA is better than NAFTA.Trump gloated like mad in Michigan:
BIDEN: It is better than NAFTA. But look at what the overall trade policy has been, even with NAFTA [sic]? We now have this gigantic deficit in trade with Mexico. Not because NAFTA wasn't made better, because overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.
TAPPER: I guess my only point is: I'm a blue-collar guy sitting in Macomb County, Michigan, if I were that person.
BIDEN: Yeah.
TAPPER: I'm sitting here listening to your pitch and I'm thinking, "I like what he has to sell but he's part of the establishment that has been selling my jobs down the river. He supported NAFTA, he supported Most Favored Nation status for China and Trump renegotiated NAFTA and Obama and Biden didn't."
BIDEN: I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression....
"[Biden] was interviewed by Jake Tapper who I find to be a nice guy. I don’t think he likes me too much, but that’s okay. He was interviewed on CNN and they said, 'Which is better, NAFTA or the USMCA?' He said, 'No, no, the USMCA.' Tapper goes, 'What?' Couldn’t believe it. He said USMCA. He made a mistake. From his perspective, he made a mistake because he doesn’t know what’s going on. Even though he’s right, he doesn’t know. There were a little surprised to hear that. They gave him a few chances."
Trump is leaning into the idea that Joe's mind is shot, but it didn't look like that to me. When cornered, he admitted USMCA was better than NAFTA. That wasn't "a mistake." That was, Tapper did his job and cornered Biden as he was following a strategy of weaseling and changing the subject. Biden got back to that strategy as soon as he could "I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression." He is reasonably nimble. He can evade. He's very evasive. You've got to give him that. He's old and often seems confused, but when cornered, he's quick to evade.
Posts
111 comments:
Snakes are good at evading.
He's right about inheriting a great recession. And the first thing they did was reward all the usual Democrat constituencies. No money for "Burly men!" Meanwhile, the recession continued 8 years. No "Summer of Recovery" ever appeared before Trump.
Quo evadis.
Yes, those hoping Joe has dementia will probably be disappointed in the first debate...
...that said, the backstory here is important. Tapper's journalist mask was pulled off this week when he was caught being a manipulative partisan hack, and Biden is trying to improve his (internal) poll numbers by appearing to oppose Trump while pretending to have invented one of Trump's most popular policies.
...so Tapper gets to pretend he's a journalist what asks tough questions and Biden gets to pretend he's on the popular side of an issue.
Probably an effective pivot from both men...
Great! He’s old and easily angered but can still be EVASIVE on autopilot. Fucking swamp creature.
Do not underestimate Biden. Or, generally, any opponent you may have.
He has more experience evading than governing well. We can’t expect him to struggle all the time - yet. Neither can Trump.
It's always big news when the D-hack press deviate from the script.
"I like what he has to sell..."
Except for the part about turning America's cities over to howling mobs of savages, eliminating the Constitution and cutting my sons' balls off. I actually have some concerns there.
I think the way to weasel out -- and Obama or Clinton I could have done this easily -- is by saying there's good parts and bad parts but the bad outweighs the good, in that the improvements been extremely minor and won at the cost of destabilizing our relationships with our closest neighbours blah blah blah. Obama could probably have handwaved it away at that level since the press rarely if ever challenged him. Clinton I was actually interested in policy and would probably have been able to blather on about local content rules, wage disparities, investor state dispute resolution and whatever else. Enough to make it seem like he had a substantive critique. But either way, it's not hard to avoid giving Trump a win.
That said, Biden might judge that it's better to admit something like that up front than engage in the kind of slippery rhetoric Clinton and Obama excelled at. Even in 2008, when he was somewhat more lucid than today, he was willing to say positive things about McCain, e.g. that he trusted him, would jump to action if McCain said he needed it, or something like that.
I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression....
Aside from the fact most Americans lack basic economic competence I have a hard time understanding why Democrats think this oft repeated statement helps them.
You could have fixed it, or taken a political knee and let it have been the Republican's problem. Instead you chose something else...
He’s starting to whiff on softballs too now.
Advanced brain imaging studies show, when a politician dies, the Lobe of Evasion is the last part of the brain to cease functioning. I think hearing is the 2nd to last.
So theoretically, a politician is probably being evasive even after you think he's finally gone.
The fight or flight mechanism is part of the reptilian brain.
Biden does sound more cogent than I have heard him sound all year. But Obama/Biden's granting of most-favored-nation status to China looks like a colossal mistake. And USCMA is much better than NAFTA.
Great points Mr. Tapper. Totally unexpected.
Biden's entire campaign is based on, "Yes, but Trump!"
His people believe it doesn't matter that Trump did an excellent job being President.
He needs to be replaced for "moral reasons".
It cracks me up that Trump calls Jake nice but says "I don't think he likes me very much". Charming!
He's old and often seems confused, but on the plus side, when cornered, he's quick to evade.
We now have this gigantic deficit in trade with Mexico. Not because NAFTA wasn't made better, because overall trade policy and how he deals with it made everything worse.
This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. But I do think I know how to fix the trade deficit with Mexico. Open the borders, and make illegal immigration not illegal.
Ah yes Joe your eight years battling the"great depression". Your best solutions were Cash for Clunkers, and Fast and Furious to aid gun manufactures with exports. Fine record indeed.
lets see it for 90 minutes
"Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry" was a DuPont advertising pitch, begun in 1935.
And Old Joe believes it and his campaign makes sure he lives it. Load Old Joe up with some drugs before appearances and he can appear to be okay, to be living better.
Trumps Kool-Aid working it's magic on Biden. Just admit the scummy fuck did some good things and move on. No one can be all bad.
“Quick to evade” Thats ol Joe. And most of his fellow pols.
Laughable that Biden brings up Iran. US v Iran is much more in USA's favor now that it was when Biden was VP.
Biden is going to have to burn his "NAFTA is NIFTY" t-shirt.
Trump is leaning into the idea that Joe's mind is shot, but it didn't look like that to me. When cornered, he admitted USMCA was better than NAFTA. That wasn't "a mistake." That was, Tapper did his job and cornered Biden as he was following a strategy of weaseling and changing the subject.
But it was a mistake, because what Biden shoudl have said was "NAFTA was better"
We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression...
...and Democrats, stop acting like you know what you were talking about. Obama's own people believed the recession would be a short lived, V-bottom recession and recovery (You can go look it up) and their instincts weren't wrong- it should have been. It was a series of bad Obama policies that prolonged the recession. Whacking the banks with a crow bar, sowing fear in business large and small, incompetent soul crushing regulation, threat of criminality of healthy business practices, tax rate increases...none of these were constructive to recovery.
Biden can also be said to have lied (more likely forgot, in my opinion) when he said he and Obama couldn't renegotiate NAFTA because they had a Republican Congress. It is like Biden forgets the period between January 2009 and January 2011. Even worse, though, is this- Trump got it through a Democratic Congress.
Tapper didn't really press Biden, though- Biden clearly knew the question was coming- most of the beginning of that was clearly the canned answer, the only problem was that Biden tried to go off script and mucked it up as usual.
Michael K said...
He's right about inheriting a great recession. And the first thing they did was reward all the usual Democrat constituencies. No money for "Burly men!"
No, "burly men" WERE one of the "usual Democrat constituencies". But feminists flexed their political muscles, and got all the "shovel ready" support eliminated.
NOW "burley men" are voting for Trump, because Trump actually does want to help them
Althouse can’t give Biden credit for giving credit to Trump.
Mike (MJB Wolf) wrote:
"He’s starting to whiff on softballs too now."
Wins the thread. That is the real take away from this smaller bit from the larger interview- Tapper teed this question up for Biden and Biden knew the question was coming, and Biden fucked it up anyway. To his credit, Tapper then focused in on the fuck up for just a moment, probably to allow Biden to correct his course, and Biden couldn't do it- thus the fallback to the "inherited the worse recession" story that Biden tells at every single event at which he is asked to speak.
Yes, Michael K, I remember that one, too. Spring of 2009 the hits just kept coming out of the Pelosi-Obama-Reid Machine. The payoffs were pouring out the back of the White House 24-7, back up the trucks and load em up.
One of gazillion micro-details: Pelosi's fat budget included a 2% pay raise for govt. union workers, despite the credit meltdown, PLUS they made the pay raise retroactive 2 years. (I despise government unions -- maybe that's why I despise democratic party solutions.)
So much misuse of power it added up to Tea Parties even in Leftie Portland, Oregon by May.
Before declaring Biden nimble for his somewhat effective evasive maneuvers in an interview that he was clearly well prepped for, suggest watching the whole interview, not just the clips selected for publicity. In every interview, including this one, you can observe Biden lose his place. It's not that people with dementia can't appear temporarily cogent, or even be cogent. There are various techniques to compensate for an addled brain. Just compare Biden's speech today, even in this interview--even in this clip of the interview that is being publicized--with any clip of him speaking 10 years ago.
Biden has always babbled and said inappropriate things.For decades we were told "it's just Joe being Joe." Now that he is older the same idiosyncrasies are deemed dementia.
Interesting product placement. Couldn't they have had the Ford products with hazard flashers turned on for greater presence?
We had a Republican Congress? Did Joe join the Obama Administration in year three?
(Anyone think a similar answer by Trump wouldn't have been fact checked and labeled a lie?)
The evasiveness will be the very last thing to go.
-willie
rehajm: "Yes, those hoping Joe has dementia will probably be disappointed in the first debate..."
Not likely.
Biden is often able to speak somewhat coherently about things he long dealt with: His supporting China getting Most Favored Nation status, his supporting NAFTA, his supporting letting China into the WTO, shipping US jobs over to China to kill off US coal companies and manufacturing.
All that stuff is in his addled brain.
Where Biden gets in trouble is when he starts trying to modernize and bring up to the moment the set of current lies the democraticals are trying to sell:
- Donald Trump is the one who wants to defund police (yes, they are actually trying to sell that one)
- Donald Trump is the one who created the riots that a month ago didn't exist
- Donald Trump is the one who sent US jobs overseas with his trade deals (yes, they are actually trying to sell that one)
- Donald Trump is weak on China (yes, they are actually trying to sell that one).
and on and on.
Because, you know, the thing.
Howard: "Trumps Kool-Aid working it's magic on Biden. Just admit the scummy fuck did some good things and move on. No one can be all bad."
LOL
Like your Howard's Heroes would allow Biden to get away with admitting anything like that at all.
No, Biden knows his democraticals all too well and according to them, Trump is literally Hitler and has never done a single good thing for this country at all. And Biden is going to stick to that story.
Similar to how you spent about 4 months praising the antifa/marxist soy/latte rioters as the next coming of The Greatest Generation Warrior Gods until the democratical bosses told you to shut up about it.
"His people believe it doesn't matter that Trump did an excellent job being President.
He needs to be replaced for "moral reasons"."
I just ran across exactly this argument from a neighbor this morning. She can't begin to explain how Biden is more moral than Trump. It's simply an article of faith, or a spell to mutter as she tries to deaden the horror of having to admit she's casting her vote for a demented man without ideas or policies, just because all the right people hate his opponent. She's probably sure it will all work out somehow or another.
USMCA is indeed an improvement of NAFTA.
The USMCA takes the structure of NAFTA, and modernizes it and tweaks the agreement in ways that essentially bring Canada and Mexico together with the USA in being marginally more protectionist versus the Far East.
But Trump claimed that NAFTA was the worst trade deal in history. It wasn’t. It was a good deal, and after a couple of decades it needed and deserved the modernization that we saw two years ago. The USMCA isn’t a refutation of what NAFTA did; it is a continuation.
Trump fans; apart from adjusting discrete percentages of things like the percentage content of assembled autos that must be manufactured in one of the three North American nations, what was the big alteration in the structure of the agreement? Can anyone name one, two or three large structural trade changes made by the USMCA?
Jake should've then asked Biden WHY the USMCA was better than NAFTA. Dig into the details. That's where Biden would have floundered bigly.
Gallup: 86% Of Americans Think The Media Is Biased
Legacy Media Has Destroyed Itself. For What?
...and Tapper was caught with his hand in the partisan hack cookie jar.
He wants to make distinctions with Biden??
"C'mon man!! You know the thing?"
Now do Bidens spokesperson with Bret Baier yesterday. Now that was an interview to watch. What a joke Bidens whole campaign is.
For the low information voter, which is most voters, Biden comes off looking good. You have to know quite a bit to recognize the falsehoods buried in Biden's statements.
Now an honest interviewer would challenge Biden or at least give Biden more difficult questions, but there are very few honest interviewers out there. Jake Tapper initially challenged Biden here because he thought he was helping Biden -- because he thought Biden had made a statement contrary to Biden's interest.
Now people that really understand what is going on can see the humor in that situation, but most people are going to miss it.
I have yet to hear a single specific from Biden or his camp. It's always "President Trump did it wrong". That's it, the end of the thought. Never a specific alternative that is better. Never.
That's if you can get so far as "Trump is wrong." Last night Biden press lead, was interviewed on FOX. The man never answered a single question. Not once. Brett Baier did the interview. I think he started with Biden accusing Trump of being responsible for all the COVID deaths. Bair asked what Biden would have done different. The spox, launched into a 90 second monologue of 'Trump bad'. Follow up, "but what would Joe have done. More word salad. "but what would Joe have done different'? Joe's not the president, Trump is. But what actions taken be Trump were wrong? "look, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals about things Joe doesn't have the power to implement."
It all ended with Bair asking, yes or no, is Joe using a teleprompter to answer reporters questions? That sent the spox over the edge, he lost it, and accused Bair of being fed questions by the Trump campaign. Without evidence.
I scored the match as a forfeit by the Biden campaign for refusing to engage.
Just yesterday-Joe Biden: "We want China to grow"
No Joe. You and Hunter and your family want China to grow....at America's expense...because that's how you get paid.
From the post:
"Biden got back to that strategy as soon as he could "I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression." He is reasonably nimble. He can evade. He's very evasive. You've got to give him that. He's old and often seems confused, but when cornered, he's quick to evade."
I thnk Biden's evasion is more like a pre-recorded answer - almost like phatic speech. Not a whole lot different from the meme-of-the-day seen on social media.
Howard - true. No one can be 100% bad. I liked what Obama/Biden did regarding space exploration, opening it up to private industry.
Every last single other thing they ever did in their horrific misbegotten reign of error was so mind boggingly awful that it can be explained by nothing other than an obsessive desire to see America fundamentally destroyed, But the space stuff was good.
Biden may be bullshitting and obfuscating but I think he performed pretty damn well there. And if he performs anywhere near that well in the debates, I and a lot of others who think he is going to fall apart and be destroyed by Trump are in for a big and very unpleasant surprise.
Forty plus years of being a politician? Of course he knows how to weasel. He may have lost a few miles (or a couple of hundred) on his mental fast ball, but weaseling ability is the last to go.
I haven't enjoyed Tapper since he went to CNN, but that was a solid showing on his part.
And Biden was "alive" there....really one of the first times. Now during the RNC convention, Kim Guilfoyle was claimed to be high as was Don Jr.
But Biden here? He looks extremely wired. And he did a good showing, even with this "misstep". So I'm assuming he can be drugged up effectively.
Meanwhile, back in the real world (defined as anywhere the democratical narratives do not hold sway), we have this:
Member of Swedish Parliament nominates Trump for second Nobel Peace Prize:
Magnus Jacobsson@magnusjacobsson
I have nominated the US Gov. and the governments of Kosovo and Serbia for the Nobel Peace Prize for their joint work for peace and economic development, through the cooperation agreement signed in the White House. Trade and communications are important building blocks for peace.
Clearly, Trump's peacemaking and non-war starting are dangerous actions which should lead to his forced removal from office immediately by a combined US military and US intelligence services strike force.
The Force will be commanded by General James Mattoon Scott....or Gen Mattis. Whichever is most readily available.
That might not be Mattis since, as we have learned, he has spent a number of years on the Board of Directors for Theranos.........yes, that's right. Theranos.
I think we are beginning to understand why Mattis turned on Trump, aren't we?
Qwinn: "Howard - true. No one can be 100% bad."
Trump is currently being portrayed as 100% bad in 100% of the democratical legacy media organs.
Did Ford sponsor this interview?
Jake and Joe's eyes tell a meaningful story unrelated to the anodyne conversation about trade.
MadTownGuy: "I thnk Biden's evasion is more like a pre-recorded answer - almost like phatic speech."
I still love the "put on the record player. Let them hear words."
LOL
I think the way to weasel out -- and Obama or Clinton I could have done this easily -- is by saying there's good parts and bad parts but the bad outweighs the good, in that the improvements been extremely minor and won at the cost of destabilizing our relationships with our closest neighbours blah blah blah.
Too risky for Joe.
Follow up question: what are some of the good (or bad) parts?
Isn't weaseling part of the denial of mental illness?
The reason the Dems are demeaning instantaneous fact-checking of Trump's debate statements is simple.
If Trump said Biden was for sending Chinese people to the moon, Biden wouldn't remember whether he was for or against it.
He needs a referee to step in and say whether that's Biden's policy before Joe answers and tells us what a wonderful policy it is.
LLR-lefty and Whitmer Reelection Campaign Fanboy Chuck: "USMCA is indeed an improvement of NAFTA.
The USMCA takes the structure of NAFTA, and modernizes it and tweaks the agreement in ways that essentially bring Canada and Mexico together with the USA in being marginally more protectionist versus the Far East."
tsk tsk tsk
The same tired FakeCon lies, over and over again.
NAFTA created an foreign importer exploitable entry point into the U.S. market. Asian nations, the EU, the big multinationals used Canada and Mexico to avoid having to deal directly with the US in Trading relationships.
The ChiComs and Europeans would simply complete final assembly of their products in Canada or Mexico and then ship those products into the US and avoid US trade tariffs and whatever direct trade agreements existed with the US.
These finished products, foreign produced, using satellite final assembly points in Canada and Mexico, waltzed right into the US under NAFTA rules.
A huge win and competitive advantage for our economic competitors.
LLR-lefty Chuck loved loved loved that arrangement. Do you know why? Because many established liberal publications told him it was a very good thing and LLR-lefty Chuck never goes against his better lettered betters.
Ever. He pretty much worships them.
This NAFTA loophole was Trump's PRIMARY reason for renegotiating NAFTA.
And Trump succeeded. Massively. Which is strange because FakeCon Chuck swore up and down this deal would never happen. Ever. Under any circumstances.
In fact, LLR-lefty Chuck assured all and sundry that anyone who bought into the idea of a renegotiated NAFTA was deplorable fool.
Well. I think we see where that all came out.
By the way, what happened right after USMCA passed? Foreign nations and US multinationals now had to increase manufacturing right here in the states in order to create the best possible tariff conditions for their products in the US markets.
LLR-lefty Chuck hates, hates, HATES that. Why? Because he was told to hate it by those lefties who run him.
So what happened to all those satellite operations in Canada used by our foreign competitors once USMCA was passed? They shut down because they became an unnecessary cost with no trade advantages, which led to a big drop in Canadian jobs.
And I didn't even get started on how the USMCA deal leveled the playing field for US dairy and agricultural products entering Canada because if I shared any more information on this I'm afraid LLR-lefty Chuck would very likely revert to being an immediate danger to any woman or child that is in his vicinity.
Like before.
"Biden may be bullshitting and obfuscating but I think he performed pretty damn well there. And if he performs anywhere near that well in the debates, I and a lot of others who think he is going to fall apart and be destroyed by Trump are in for a big and very unpleasant surprise."
Watch the entire interview, Ice Nine, not just that 6 minutes. And, in any case, I disagree with your opinion of the 6 minutes- the inaccuracies are only obvious if one is actually well versed in the topic being discussed. I listed some of them above, and others have added to it. Also, it is pretty damned clear that Tapper was expecting a different reply, and tried to rescue Biden, not be tough with him- it failed.
Of course, I watch every single video Biden is involved in- so I even knew just before he started telling it, that the "we inherited the second worse economy" diversion was coming. Biden does this all the time- an unimpaired person, especially a retail politician will change up the routine to keep it fresh, but Biden can't do that any longer- he is basically down to two stories for that purpose- "inheriting recession" and "poor in Scranton".
And just for good measure:
As of Sept 9, 2020, the following have occurred regarding the Israel-UAE deal that Trump made happen (that LLR-lefty Chuck said was impossible and would never happen):
- The Arab League refused to condemn the Israel-UAE peace deal
- It was reported that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain will allow all flights to/from Israel to fly through their airspace
- Abu Dhabi directed all hotels to start offering kosher food
OMG, right LLR-lefty Chuck? Not only did Trump make all that happen, but he made it happen with those Israeli's whom you and your marxist pals despise.
Which simply makes it all the sweeter for the rest of us.
Of course, I don't know if you despise the Israeli's more or less than you do conservative politicians with stellar military combat records, but at this point it no longer matters.
Reddit is reporting that the dementia medication Namenda his physician Dr. O'Connor has put him on has made Biden incontinent, forcing his staff to seek invisible and inaudible remedies for him to wear when needed, such as during the debates.
So perhaps the nimbleness you perceive may be more Biden desperately seeking the first available bathroom break.
No, "burly men" WERE one of the "usual Democrat constituencies". But feminists flexed their political muscles, and got all the "shovel ready" support eliminated.
Oh, I agree. The money all went to "service" jobs, like teachers and nurses. Nothing for infrastructure, which was badly needed. Then the highway bridge in Minnesota collapsed soon after.
More Joe Biden fun!
But the point is that I think it was the feeling that they were taken for granted. I don’t know that for a fact. And I think that he used that dog whistle on race. Now it’s a bullhorn.
Part of Joe Biden's answer to Jake Tappers question about why Macomb County, which voted for obambi twice, went for Trump "bigly" in 2016....
Joe Biden: "But the point is that I think it was the feeling that they were taken for granted. I don’t know that for a fact. And I think that he used that dog whistle on race. Now it’s a bullhorn."
Yes.
Joe Biden, just yesterday, called Macomb County voters "racist". Remember, these are voters who voted for obambi twice but then switched to Trump in 2016.
Racists.
I'm thinking that might end up in a few ads.
Of course, if the democraticals are "on the ball", what they would do is find a few white "lifelong republicans" in the Detroit area to come out and agree with Biden that all those 2xobambi/1xTrump voters are irredeemable and deplorable racists who drive out the "good" "lifelong" "republican" "conservatives" who are now fully on board the Democratical Marxist Train.
He can evade. He's very evasive.
A LOT of demented people are that way.
40% of the left hates America, and the other 60% hate conservatives so much they are willing to sacrifice America to get at the conservatives
>>Left Bank of the Charles said...
Althouse can’t give Biden credit for giving credit to Trump.<<
Because he didn't - "Yeah, buts" don't count. Everything before "but" is always bullshit.
Biden looked compos mentis there. So it's reassuring: he can still, sometimes, rise to the challenge of being a weaseling hack.
And now, on top of everything else, we have the "Culture Editor" at the leftist-funded FakeCon The Bulwark, Sonny Bunch, coming out in defense of the Netflix created child pornography show "Cuties".
And, as you will recall, a certain LLR-lefty FakeCon from Michigan proclaimed, on this very site, just days ago, that He Agreed 100% With Every Single Thing The Bulwark Was Doing.
Every. Single. Thing.
That makes it official.
In addition to being a likely "bigly" danger to women and children based on his comments at Althouse Blog over the years, we now have to put LLR-lefty Chuck in the Pro-child pornography column as well.
But lets be honest here, is anyone really that surprised?
TAPPER: He renegotiated NAFTA and you didn't is the point.
I think that this will be a common refrain throughout the remainder of the campaign.
TAPPER: He negotiated a peace deal between the UAE and Israel and you didn't is the point.
TAPPER: He negotiated a peace deal between Bosnia and Serbia and you didn't is the point.
TAPPER: He negotiated a peace deal between Bahrain and Israel and you didn't is the point.
TAPPER: He didn't start any new wars and you did is the point.
Etc... etc..
He needs to be replaced for "moral reasons...
Isn't there an oft repeated political trope that if your political argument is down to morality or patriotism you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of good arguments for your side?
I saw this part of the interview. I agree that Biden seemed much more alert and coherent than I am used to. At first I also thought Jake Tapper was doing a fair interview but then Biden somehow got to speaking about Trump and North Korea. He said Trump lifted sanctions and now North Korea is closer to a nuclear weapon than ever before! Jake Tapper didn't even blink. I am certain he knows better. I think Biden somehow mixed up his criticism of Trump's handling of Iran with that of North Korea.
I can't wait for the first debate.
"He can evade. He's very evasive."
With MSMers, sure.
Still, good reminder that Joe may be Slow but hasn't lost it.
[Obama/Biden] inherited the greatest recession short of a depression.
The end of the Iraq War, and fiscal stabiliztion and economic recovery was in progress before their administration.
Oh wait. Obama did one other good thing. He killed Osama bin Laden.
Biden, naturally, opposed that raid, and it only happened because Obama ignored him. He lies about that now, claiming he always supported it.
So Biden alone could actually be worse than Obama. Even the possibility of which is apalling.
"The Trump administration has awarded Kodak a $765 million government loan under the Defense Production Act to help speed the domestic manufacturing of certain medical drugs.
A new division, Kodak Pharmaceuticals, is expected to create 350 jobs, senior administration officials said during a call with reporters Tuesday. The move is billed as part of a larger effort to secure a United States supply of critical pharmaceutical ingredients and modernize the Strategic National Stockpile.
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the agency that engineered the deal, has been working with the Department of Defense to relocate important supply chains out of China for months at the president's direction."
Trump reroutes pharmaceutical manufacturing from China to New York Kodak plant
by Katherine Doyle, White House Correspondent | | July 28, 2020 03:15 PM
We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression....
----------==========
isn't the usual choice /worst/ not "greatest"? unless it is crisis being not wasted?
"I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression."
Even coming from Slow Joe that doesn't a great deal of sense.
To the extent we had a recession, it was caused by a global pandemic, not a strategic economic policy. And to the extent Trump tried to strategically protect the US economy during the pandemic, we are in the greatest recovery this quarter. Which only tells me that the destruction of the US economy by lower level government leaders because of covid always had the goal of trying to make Trump look bad for the election, to create that narrative. Democrats don't care about saving lives, and the strategy they implemented is backfiring.
Dementia is a sad thing, even in Joe Biden. He lies to himself constantly, to keep up his self-image. Lying to the public to maintain his public image isn't even a conscious decision.
Senator Harris should be ashamed to be a candidate on the Biden ticket.
Biden may be bullshitting and obfuscating but I think he performed pretty damn well there.
Ha ha. I guess you didn’t see the part of the interview where Joe gets lost trying to disparage the “Slow Joe” tag Trump hung on him. It does not go smoothly and he clearly forgets what the subject is. I especially silly like the clip with Tapper sits in silence for several seconds trying to digest the word salad Joe is serving up there.
Trump objected to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic agreement simply because the Obama Administration, which included involvement from Joe Biden, supported this modernization of the limited NAFTA agreement while linking to the "Amazing Asian" economies. Initially, (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam) were committed to this well-written and economically advantageous agreement which would have automatically ended the old-fashioned NAFTA deal that labor unions have always opposed for all the wrong reasons.
Then during the July 31, 2019 debate, Biden gave a mysterious half-assed answer to the question of joining TPP as follows:
"I would not rejoin the TPP as it was initially put forward. I would insist that we renegotiate pieces of that with the Pacific nations that we had in South America and North America, so that we could bring them together to hold China accountable for the rules of us setting the rules of the road as to how trade should be conducted. Otherwise, they're going to do exactly what they're doing, fill the vacuum and run the -- and run the table."
China is not a member of TPP and international agreements are not designed for the purpose of putting the U.S. in charge of anything. However, with the Trump rejection of TPP, ten Southeast Asian countries are committed to signing a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in 2020 with six of their large trading partners: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Note that the U.S. is not included.
The TPP agreement would have immediately cut over 18,000 tariffs with those covering all U.S. manufactured goods and almost all U.S. farm products completely eliminated. Donald could not personally make money on TPP, so he dived into his three-year renegotiation of NAFTA which raised American consumer costs and then he imposed world-wide import tariffs which wrought counter-tariffs on American goods. Our farm commodities market overseas died and Trump has so-far doled out $3.2 billion in additional farm subsides - and yes Virginia, Walmart prices went up, as did the prices on American steel and aluminum which also begets U.S. autos and inflation in general.
Slow Joe is an evasive, doddering liar.
gadfly: "Trump objected to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic agreement simply because the Obama Administration, which included involvement from Joe Biden, supported this modernization of the limited NAFTA agreement while linking to the "Amazing Asian" economies."
My god.
You really are that stupid, aren't you?
I mean, its not an act and you are not playing dumb. You simply are that dumb.
Meanwhile, Israel, Bahrain and the UAE will be at the White House next week to sign their full normalization with Israel.
Did you know that UAE has ordered its prime hotels to begin stocking kosher food?
Did you know that 3 days ago the nation of Chad agreed to upgrade its relationship with Israel as well? Probably not, since the lying liars of the legacy media don't like to talk about those kind of developments.
Peace between Israel and the Arab nations is breaking out everywhere, and there are hints of other moves to come.
And every one of the Althouse morons, LLR-lefty Chuck, Freder, ARM the ChiCom suckup, gadfly the Pathetic, et al have told us for 4 straight years none of this would ever happen. That in fact, it was all impossible.
Which makes this absolutely perfect.
By the very criteria established by the Althouse Moron contingent, led by the Althouse morons listed above and others, by their own criteria, which they themselves established, Trump has achieved the literal "impossible".
With Jared as the negotiation team lead.
Can you imagine the flop sweat the Althouse marxist morons like LLR-lefty Chuck and ARM are experiencing right now as they desperately await the much needed talking points for why this earth-shattering development, delivered by Trump, against EVERY SINGLE BIT OF "WISDOM" AND ADVICE that the "elites" have been operating under for 60 years, is really no big deal at all?
We've already seen LLR-lefty Chuck in full Lefty Liar Mode over the trade deals which he had claimed would be impossible to deliver. I have no doubt that he will be trying with all his little FakeCon might to figure out a way to give all credit to his beloved "magnificent" obama.
And who will forget the 4 straight years of ARM's insults about Jared and his role in all this.
Not me.
And I won't let ARM forget it either. That ChiCom suckup deserves all the ridicule that can be delivered to him via a Trump Tomahawk Reality Missile.
As for gadfly, I intend to just sit back and laugh. As always.
I also strongly recommend that gadfly stop going Full Inga by cutting and pasting things he/she/xe can't begin to understand.
I have been thinking about Trump's approach to the debates - if there are any. ( I argue that there is absolutely no way Biden can renege on the debates. It would be death) I think Trump is not going to attack Joe, per se. I think he will be relatively kind as a demonstration that Joe can't cut it and being cruel to him would would be too much and alienate the mythical "suburban woman". Joe is in such bad shape that I can't imagine any way his handlers can get him through three debates in tact.
@ gadfly As I have to frequently remind the WSJ editorial page: we would not be in TPP if Hillary had been elected. She rejected TPP out of hand as well.
Prediction: During the Debates, Biden will have moments of lucidity. And moments of bumbling. Guess which moments CNN will show?
The two movies theme will continue.
The TPP agreement would have immediately cut over 18,000 tariffs with those covering all U.S. manufactured goods and almost all U.S. farm products completely eliminated.
I guess that's why Democrats are claiming credit for it being in the USMCA deal.
gadfly, give it up. You are a fool.
Joe performed well in that he sounded lucid and didn’t go into his blank stare mode.
On the other hand everything he said is a lie,which is what he’ll do in the debates. Glib lies, unchallenged by the moderators, will appeal to the LOVs.
Thus Trump cannot be kind. He must attack, go for the jugular, Factually, as in “Joe, don’t you remember calling me a xenophobe and saying it was wrong to close the border with China?”
“Joe, don’t you remember saying you would defund the police”?
“Joe, why can’t you remember saying you support free healthcare for illegal aliens?”
Better yet, include the date and medium/location for the statements. Make him lie in a way that is totally obvious, or agree that he said these things.
Isn't Kodak still in Rochester? Doesn't all of upstate New York hate the liberal ban on fracking? I see a yuge campaign rally coming soon.
The needle they use to get Joe up for important appearances like with Jake doesn't go into the vein for Town Hall meetings in Bunkum cities where the dotage is not hidden. The dosage levels will be so high after the debates Joe will be put to sleep for 48 hours of recovery.
You've got to give him that. He's old and often seems confused, but when cornered, he's quick to evade.
Want to bet about when that interview was filmed. I'd wager it was filmed in the morning. Biden has dementia and I'm sure his DNC handlers are doing their best to manage the situation.
@wbfjrr2 I agree that Trump should be tough and ask direct questions. I think he needs to be careful about using sarcasm, insults or seeming intimidation as he did with Hillary. Asking "Don't you remember this speech" with film clip would be fabulous if he can get away with it. "Joe: fracking?" "Joe: no gas powered cars?" etc. etc.
Qwinn said...
Oh wait. Obama did one other good thing. He killed Osama bin Laden.
Biden, naturally, opposed that raid, and it only happened because Obama ignored him.
-----------================
I agree with Biden -
I would add further Osama should have been doxxed rather than SEALHunted.
and Let Pakistan handle the fall out.
My Trumpist friends need to abandon their fantasy that Biden will go drooling ga-ga during the debates and persuade everybody that he can't do the job of President (Kamala may also need to learn that lesson, but that's a different issue). Biden doesn't have to be another Reagan, he just needs to be coherent, as he was in this interview (sure, it was a friendly interview, and there were things Joe got wrong; is Trump going to get into a debate with Joe on the details?). After half an hour of debate, Joe may start to slip -- but how many people will still be watching by then? And do you think the network news shows will highlight any of Joe's late night stumbles?
Like, 2016, Trump needs to WIN this election, not rely on Biden to LOSE it. And Trump's supporters need to get off their asses and work on his campaign -- and the campaigns of all Republican Senate and House candidates in their districts.
Trump fans; apart from adjusting discrete percentages of things like the percentage content of assembled autos that must be manufactured in one of the three North American nations, what was the big alteration in the structure of the agreement? Can anyone name one, two or three large structural trade changes made by the USMCA?
9/11/20, 10:09 AM
You still here? I tell you what. Good question! Ask it of Joe Biden.
In talking about Muttering Joe and Jake Tapper, Ann Althouse said...
"Biden got back to that strategy as soon as he could 'I'll tell you what we did do. We inherited the greatest recession short of a depression.' He is reasonably nimble. He can evade. He's very evasive. You've got to give him that. He's old and often seems confused, but when cornered, he's quick to evade."
I hear the faint echoes of someone rationalizing pulling the lever for Biden on Election Day. Beyond that, an evader with a lifetime of habit reverts to nature, even as an old toothless dog knows how to bark.
I don't understand going all in on Biden being a doddering old fool. I mean, in my opinion he's been wrong on so many things through the years, but that's with his full faculties.
Seems to me that when (if) the debates do happen, the bar is being set so low that if Biden can string a few sentences together, he'll be hailed as a genius.
The talk of Trump would wipe the floor with Biden is nuts, too. It's not like Trump is some master debater. Bombast is not debate and CNN, etc will "fact check" everything he says anyway, what's the point. I think there's more downside for Trump in the debates that Biden.
While I don't want to be rat packed here, I believe Trump needs to be very tough but kind, if he can manage it, during the debates. Romney pulled back during his debates with BO, apparently in honor of his race, and lost the presidential contest he should have won. That made it clear the Dim/Media complex will take no prisoners no matter what. So, the President needs to go in swinging but keep things professional if he can. The President is a fighter and has been unfairly hammered since before the election so he probably won't be able to avoid taking what will be interpreted as cheap shots.
Since the first debate is with Chris Wallace of Fox, assuming it happens, I wonder if Chris will be as tough on both candidates or become a suck up to Biden while trying to bean Trump?
I know liberals will never, ever forgive Bernard Shaw for tripping up Michael Dukakis with that death penalty question. It is a typical flavor of question republican candidates get all the time. In this case it punched a big hole in Dukakis's boat and finished his race off while he was still competitive with elder Bush. Is Chris willing to be a liberal pariah if he sinks Biden?
Just looking at Tapper's mild pushback and how Slow Joe automatically squirts ink like a squid to escape, I wonder how that will work in an hour long format? Particularly one where there will be fast balls coming across the plate?
Uncle Joey Biden = Darth Evader.
The recession that Obama inherited was a man made recession in order to make sure Obama was elected. If you sheeple do not know this then you need to stop watching TV and do some research. That recession was the typical October surprise because Obama was losing the election.
How is inheriting anything "doing" something?
How is inheriting anything "doing" something?
The usual progression of dementia is initially loss of recent memory, degraded short-term memory, and inability to reason or synthesize anything new. It is only late in the deterioration process that long-established habits and older memories vanish. For a person with decades of practice being a politician first (and statesman last or never), a well developed habit of evasion and adeptness in it is to be expected, particularly from somebody like Slow Joe who has always been intellectually dishonest. For those who have dealt with relatives afflicted with dementia, Biden's descent is perfectly obvious, and not controverted by his well-worn deflection, evasion and dissimulation skills.
USMCA is 97% the same as NAFTA. The tariff situation was the big thing - Mexico went from three-digit tariffs on many agricultural imports before NAFTA, to zero for US farm crops. Also Mexico's financial services market, which went from closed to open for US companies.
Mexico became the #1 or #2 market for US corn, rice, beef, pork, other crops. NAFTA was a bonanza for the Iowa agricultural juggernaut, for Wall Street, and for wealthy Mexicans who got better options for investing their wealth. Mexican farmers got screwed by their own politicians, and had to go work in factories. Mexico grew a middle class. The North American auto market integrated itself and got more competitive.
What Lighthizer did: cut back on market access for autos, and reduced the competitiveness of US automakers against China, by tinkering with the rules of origin. This is not fatal; if the rules of origin really don't work commercially, they can be changed down the road.
But Trump's original USMCA was unenforceable. Any government that didn't comply could just block a dispute settlement panel. This was exactly what Lighthizer wanted--he fundamentally dislikes all trade agreements that the US can't break if it wants to, even if the cost is that the US gets nothing in return.
Lighthizer's view was that the US could just slam Mexico with tariffs if we were unhappy, but that meant that when there's a problem, there would be no way to deal with it short of starting a trade war. We have been down that path before -- when Trump put big tariffs on Mexican steel, Mexico put big tariffs on US ag products and it was American farmers who paid.
The other thing about Trump trade policy is that when a trading partner creates multiple problems like India or Mexico, the Trump White House chooses which American interest to go to bat for based on how their state voted or whether someone is a friend of Jared. (Consider the favors they did for Apple, or Kodak.) Like everything else in economic policy, trade policy has been turned into crony capitalism.
The House Democrats refused to pass the agreement until it was fixed. Lighthizer read the writing on the wall and agreed to Democrats' demands on fixing the holes in his agreement. It's been (mostly) improved relative to what he negotiated - no thanks to Trump.
Post a Comment