Sad, Whisperin’ Joe Demonstrates Decline

BUCK: Here is the calming, cooling, wise old owl presence, Joe Biden, telling everybody about democracies in the world.

BIDEN: (whispering) We have fewer democracies in the world today than we did 15 years ago. (yelling) Fewer! Not more. FEWER! Cannot be sustained. That’s why from day one of my administration, I’ve taken concrete steps to put human rights back at the center of our foreign policy and reassert our moral leadership on the global stage — to lead, as Chris has so often heard me say, with the power of our example, not the example of our power.

BUCK: (laughing) Clay, it’s like, “Not more, fewer! Fewer!” He starts reminding me of the guy from There’s Something About Mary, “Seven chipmunks twirling on a branch eating lot of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch.” Remember that guy?

CLAY: Oh, yeah. I wonder what it’s like — and I hope I never know, and some people might say it’s already happened — to be past your mental faculties and end up with a big job. Right? Like, whatever you think of Joe Biden, there’s zero doubt that 20 years ago he would have been far better at being the president of the United States than he is right now.

BUCK: It would have seemed that way for sure.

CLAY: Yeah. I’m not saying that he would have made better choices. I’m just saying that a 58-year-old Joe Biden is infinitely better than 78-year-old Joe Biden. And remember I got people kind of fired up a little bit ago. Did you see in an interview Senator Kennedy, I think, from Louisiana said that he thinks everybody should have to have cognitive tests involved in government, whether it’s the Supreme Court justices, whether it’s like elected officials; that it’s clear that people cognitively declining in their seventies and eighties. And he was not saying it just for Democrats or Republicans. But that’s what I said and remember how fired up the phone calls got?

BUCK: Oh, yeah, they got fired up. Can you imagine if we had to have members of Congress take IQ tests? That would be… America would be like, “Oh. You know, these guys are not so impressive.” (laughing)

CLAY: Oh, yeah, that would be amazing to see. But I did think it was interesting when you play that clip of Biden it circles back around to that idea. We had so much discussion about Trump needing to take a cognitive test.

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: Nothing about Biden.

BUCK: They were putting MDs on TV —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — to diagnose make-believe mental illness issues and mental capacity issues with Donald Trump on a regular basis. It was like, “Slow news day at CNN? Let’s have some quack on to say that Trump’s actually crazy!”

CLAY: And now we have all this clear evidence, I think, of the cognitive decline of Biden, and it’s like nobody can even talk about it.