Fox News host Neil Cavuto repeatedly insisted he was not knocking Joe Biden’s age - as he repeatedly suggested Biden is not up to the job of president. There was no concern mentioned about Donald Trump’s “ability.”
Guest Don Peebles, introduced as a Democratic donor, fundraiser and “close confidante of Barack Obama,” appeared on Cavuto Live yesterday to discuss the Biden campaign and the pick of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. Peebles called her “the best option” and “a centrist to kind of left of center,” not far left. He said she “makes this ticket more plausible to more conservative Democrats like me.”
Cavuto swiped at her anyway. “She would not be the first politician to have chameleon-like tendencies because you’re quite right. In her prosecutorial days her attorney general days, she had a tough record on crime and those who are repeat offenders.”
Despite the loaded description, Cavuto never explained what he meant by Harris’ “chameleon-like tendencies.”
Peebles did his part by suggesting turnout won’t be strong enough to win. “This ticket does not have the same excitement as Barack Obama. What they’re running on is that the current administration is unacceptable to Democrats and therefore this is your alternative and it may not be what you want, but it’s what you need at this moment.”
FACT CHECK: Fox News reported that the Biden-Harris team raised $48 million in 48 hours, an average of a million dollars an hour, after Harris got the VP nod. But neither Cavuto nor Peebles mentioned it.
Instead, Cavuto began suggesting that Biden is not up to the job of president.
CAVUTO: He’s not on the stump very much. When he comes out of his home, man cave, whatever you want to call it, it’s like a rope a dope strategy, but sometimes I wonder who’s the dope? …
Say what you will of Donald Trump good, bad, or ill, he takes on all questioners whether he’s leaving the White House on his way to Marine One or at a venue where he starts talking to reporters, he’s well practiced in the fight in the battle. And every time I see Joe Biden, and I’m not criticizing his age, the older I get, I forget what I had for breakfast this morning, who am I to judge?
But having said that, do you think Joe Biden is rusty? Do you think that he’s not ready for this, and they’re holding him back from these venues because they get worried about it too?
Peebles responded, “I don’t think the campaign is showing enough confidence in the vice president.”
That prompted more from Cavuto.
CAVUTO: Well, there’s good reason, though, right? There’s good reason.He has had halting performances, forgot his train of thought. Again, I’m not rapping him on the old age thing, I’m just wondering though whether every time people see him in these venues and he’s stumbling through these questions, whether it’s going to hurt him, and maybe Democrats who are pushing this ticket recognize that?”
[…]
I don’t think people know the degree to which, you know, Biden might have lost his fastball.
Biden had great responses when questioned about his cognitive ability by Fox’s Doug McKelway and CNN’s Errol Barnett.
Cavuto Neil didn’t mention Trump’s BS bragging about his cognitive test or his apparent need for two hands to lift a drink.
You can watch the concern trolling below, from the August 15, 2020 Cavuto Live.
The Right Wing has struggled to find a single easy playground nickname for Biden, so that they can label him and dismiss him as they did “Crooked Hillary” in 2016. So they’ve tried “Crooked Joe” in relation to whatever scandals they’ve tried to invent about him. They’ve tried “Creepy Joe” in relation to an invented sexual assault smear. They’ve tried “Sleepy Joe” and “Senile Joe” to say that he’s just too old to be a president. And they’ve tried “Bernie Joe” to see if they could use their anti-Sanders talking points on him.
The one they keep going back to as their standby is the senility idea. And they keep repeating it, on every outlet they can, from Fox News to OANN to Newsmax to Breitbart to The First to every angry Right Wing AM Radio shock jock in the country. And they’re figuring that they can build the same wall of noise around it that they did against Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t matter that their various “explosive” revelations about this or that gaffe by Biden don’t ring true, given Biden’s long history of gaffes. It only matters that they keep repeating it every day – hoping that even mainstream voters will be tricked into saying “Yeah, he’s too old, but hey, it’s better than Pence”. Because that’s a trap, and any sane person knows better than to walk into a Right Wing meme trap.
Angry Right Wingers are now putting all their eggs into the basket of the debates to try to somehow give Pence’s childish spokesman an edge. Except that Biden is a good debater and Pence’s spokesman has lost every debate he’s ever been in. Let’s see what happens in another month, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Right Wing media spin every debate as a massive win for the Pence White House, regardless of reality.