It’s becoming more and more clear that presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s best weapon in the 2020 general election is his silence. On Tuesday, Biden’s interview with Steve Irvin, an anchor at ABC15 in Phoenix, was abruptly cut off as the candidate struggled to find words amid softball questioning by the news anchor.
It’s the second time in less than two weeks that a Biden interview with an Arizona television station has been abruptly cut off. Last week, an interview with 12 News in Phoenix was cut short after Biden had referred to the State of Arizona as “an important city.”
As Biden was ranting about the wearing of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Irvin attempted to regain control of the interview, but Biden instead interjected with a blast against the president, “Sick! What’s with this guy?” The screen displaying Biden suddenly went black showing only the name of the Biden campaign’s production director Ari Krupkin. Suddenly, a woman’s voice said, “Steve, that’s our time.”
Irvin, visibly caught off guard, recovered to say, “OK. Alright, I appreciate your time, thanks so much to Mr. Vice President, as well.”
Biden came back on briefly to thank Irvin for the interview.
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Irvin started off by asking Biden about reopening schools, which have been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. President Trump has been very vocal about the necessity of reopening schools. Biden claimed to want schools open as well, but his list of provisos was long. He further claimed that the president was politicizing the issue.
“Just ordering schools to open, like Trump has done, isn’t good enough. We’ve got to do the hard work of getting the virus under control now and over the next two months…. But Trump doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to order schools open because he’s afraid if he doesn’t it’s going to hurt his reelection chances.”
“This president should stop tweeting and start doing the work.”
And that was Biden’s best moment of the interview.
As Irvin shifted to the Trump campaign’s claim that Biden wants to defund police police across the nation, Biden struggled to remember his talking points and couldn’t keep facts and figures straight. Biden claimed that Trump’s budget would have cut funding to police departments by “almost half a billion dollars, four hundred, I think it’s — $47 million dollars.”
While Biden says he doesn’t wish to “defund” the police, he has also stated in an interview with leftwing activist Ady Barkan that, “yes, absolutely” he would be all for “redirecting” some of that police funding.
Biden claimed that he would, in fact, increase police funding by $300 million, but that that increase would be earmarked for “community policing.”
Biden was quick to tie the question about the funding of police to the Black Lives Matter movement, although he had trouble getting the words out — or making those words make any sense. “And look, yeah, you know, we, we, we, we, we have to, this has — this has to call to action to finally confront and end the racial injustices are prevalent in this country and far, and far, and far too long.”
Biden, one of the main authors of the 1994 crime bill that included a “three strikes” provision and mandatory minimum sentencing, now claims he wants a softer, gentler form of criminal justice, up to and including Pell grants and housing subsidies for criminals looking to reenter society. At least that’s what he seems to be saying.
“I’m gonna invest in shifting our criminal focus from incarceration to prevention, ending cash bail, ensuring that one who is incarcerated for drug use alone shouldn’t go in to be incarcerated, they should be going into mandatory rehabilitation. Drug courts. And we should — and much more — they should be eligible when they, when they get out for reentry into society, from everything from Pell grants to housing. I’m gonna fight to end — you know, look. There’s an awful lot. There’s an awful lot’s going on. We have to expand ObamaCare, for example.”
How did he get from drug courts and Pell grants for criminals to an expansion of ObamaCare?
In a rant about Republican Governor Doug Ducey’s coronavirus response, Biden struggled with his words again. “And so imagine, I don’t know, I’m not saying I know what the governor’s thinking, but he’s not thinking very clearly if he continues to think he can have wide open, wide open, the, the, the state. And what do you have, you have, uh 145,277 positive cases and two hundred, uh, two two thousand seven hundred and ninety-five deaths in Arizona.”
Biden’s inability to speak — even in the most controlled of settings — must keep Democrats awake at night. If he can’t finish a 10-minute interview with a friendly member of the local press in Arizona, how is he going to compete on a debate stage with Donald Trump? Over the past year, Biden has also shown a tendency to anger quickly and challenge questioners — sometimes physically. How is the volatile former vice-president going to react when Trump badgers him about Tara Reade — the woman who claims Biden sexually assaulted her?
And so, Biden keeps hiding. The coronavirus is Joe Biden’s best friend. As his handlers can keep him under wraps due to “COVID-19 concerns,” his poll numbers stay up. But absent those campaign surrogates who watch him like hawks, can Biden stand by himself?
Image: screenshot from YouTube video
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects. He can be reached at [email protected].
