Friday Talking Points -- Joe Says It Ain't So

All week long, the pressure increased for Joe Biden to "Say it ain't so, Joe!" So this morning, he did. Biden appeared (remotely) on Morning Joe and [link:|flatly denied] the accusation made against him that he had sexually assaulted Tara Reade in 1993 while he was a sitting senator and she was on his staff: "No. It is not true. I'm saying unequivocally it never, never happened and it didn't."

When asked about his previous position when Republicans had been accused of such behavior ("You've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real" ), Biden tried to thread the needle:

Biden did make one unforced error, which he'll hopefully reconsider soon. His senatorial papers were donated to the University of Delaware, but have not been made public yet (and won't until after he leaves "public life" ). Biden asserts that even if Reade had made a personnel complaint at the time, it simply wouldn't be in his senatorial papers, therefore there's no reason to allow a search of them. Biden claimed this morning that any such complaint would reside within the National Archives, if it even existed. Reade has said she did file such a complaint with a congressional human resources office -- but not about the actual assault, rather just about other things Biden did that made her feel uncomfortable. She also said she didn't keep a copy of the complaint herself. Later today, however, the National Archives weighed in by passing the buck: "any records of Senate personnel complaints from 1993 would have remained under the control of the Senate. Accordingly, inquiries related to these records should be directed to the Senate."

This leaves all the political reporters with a paper chase -- who can be the first to hunt the complaint down or provide evidence that it never existed in the first place? This will doubtlessly play out over the next week or so. But Biden, by walling off his senatorial archive, is going to be pressed about what he's hiding, either way. The only way he can get on top of this is to allow some sort of search of his papers which is only limited to finding anything on Reade in there. This won't be easy, however. His archive consists of "1,875 boxes and 415 gigabytes of electronic content, largely uncataloged." But Trump is going to insist that Biden's "hiding something" until Biden allows such a search. The hypocrisy of Trump accusing anyone else of not being transparent is massive, of course, since we're all still waiting for those tax returns Trump repeatedly promised he'd make public four years ago (just to give the most prominent example of Trump covering up things from his own past).

Our guess is that Joe Biden is going to be forced to give some sort of speech on the general subject of violence against women, in the same way that Barack Obama had to give a speech about his pastor and J.F.K. had to give a speech about being Catholic. The only way the issue will be defused is if Biden first lays out his own lengthy record on the subject (passing the Violence Against Women Act, etc.) and then directly addresses the Reade accusation by calling for some independent actor (a former judge, maybe?) to comb through his archives in search of any evidence one way or the other. From this point on, Biden can simply refer to this speech and move on. Politically, that would seem to be the best route forward for Biden. One interview on a morning cable show is probably not going to be enough.

President Trump actually kind of gave Biden the benefit of the doubt this week, by suggesting that it was a false accusation. Trump, of course, has been accused by over a dozen women of similar behavior, and maintains that all of them are lying. One of these accusations was made not during the 2016 campaign, but while he was president, for which Trump has gotten nowhere near the scrutiny Biden is now getting. Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin pointed out this media double standard today:



Of course, while Joe Biden led the news today, there's a bigger ongoing story out there as well. So let's check in and see how Donald Trump is handling his first real crisis, shall we? Hey, at least we got through a whole week without the president suggesting injecting lethal substances into human bodies just to see what would happen, so things can't be that bad... can they?



That doesn't sound very good, does it? Well, perhaps some other sector of the economy is doing better. Let's check in with the farmers:



Well surely the federal government is taking some sort of action, right? Unfortunately, they have been, but it hasn't exactly been helping. Which is why some governors are taking matters into their own hands:



Wow. A state government forced to hide medical supplies because it doesn't trust that the Trump administration won't steal them. That's pretty jaw-dropping, when you think about it.

But it certainly wasn't the only jaw-dropping news this week. The first quarterly economic data is starting to come in, and things are pretty dismal. Gross domestic product was down 4.8 percent in the first quarter, but that's not even the worst of the bad news. Some economists are predicting that in the second quarter the economy might shrink between 35 and 40 percent. That's stunning.

Here's White House advisor Larry Kudlow, with a much rosier projection from early February (when Team Trump was still insisting that coronavirus was nothing to worry about at all):



The growth cycle begun 11 years ago is now officially over, as Kudlow was proven disastrously wrong.

The Congressional Budget Office just also predicted that this year's deficit will be the worst in all of American history, coming in at 3.7 trillion dollars. And that's before the next round of bailout bills is even factored in.

And finally, the unemployment numbers just keep getting worse as well. Another 3.8 million workers filed for unemployment this week, making the total over six weeks an astounding 30.3 million. And that doesn't even count everybody, since those are only the ones who were even eligible for unemployment payments. Next Friday we'll get a more accurate look at where unemployment truly is, when the monthly figure is announced for April. Spoiler alert: it's not going to be good. In fact, it'll likely be much worse than the depths of the Great Recession.

Or, as Donald Trump famously predicted: "We're going to win so much you'll be sick and tired of winning." Well, at least he got the "sick and tired" part right, at any rate.





This is probably more than a little bit subjective, but we've decided to give the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer has seemingly been everywhere this week, popping up in news interviews and even on late-night television. This is all in preparation for the Senate reconvening next week, and Chuck's got a built-in advantage in this regard, since he lives in New York where all the media is centered. But while Nancy Pelosi had a pretty good week in the media last week, Schumer dominated this week on television. Again, this is subjective -- perhaps we just watched the shows Schumer appeared on and missed someone better on other shows. We fully admit the possibility.

But from what we saw, Schumer is doing a great job of setting up the Democratic argument for next week, slamming Mitch McConnell for his partisan nonsense, and laying out exactly how massively Donald Trump is failing in his pandemic response. His PBS NewsHour interview was one good example (as we wrote about earlier this week).

Schumer seems eager to take on the Republicans, so next week could be an interesting one to watch in the Senate. Democrats will be pushing to pass the next coronavirus bailout bill, while McConnell will be hustling through patently unqualified judicial picks. The contrast will be stark, in other words.

Sadly, it's unusual to see a Democratic leader so effectively advance their own narrative in the press before the fighting begins. Often times they are left playing defense, but Schumer seems to have gotten out in front of things rather well.

So for his many good interviews this week, and for exhibiting an impressive amount of feistiness before the fight even starts, Chuck Schumer is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





Before we begin, we have some old business to take care of first. Last week, we issued our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to Bill and Hillary Clinton, with a caveat: "The only possible reason they haven't endorsed Biden yet would be that Team Biden is somehow holding them back so they can use their endorsements to maximum value later on."

Well, Hillary Clinton did indeed endorse Biden this week, in what was obviously a preplanned event. Bill Clinton hasn't endorsed Biden, but doing so right now would be problematic in the extreme (due to his philandering), so we can understand why Team Biden might have said: "Thanks, Bill, but no thanks, right now."

So we hereby rescind the MDDOTW awards from last week as being unjustified and unearned, and issue our own apology to the Clintons. Mea culpa.

Because we were premature with last week's award, we're also going to hold off on even considering Joe Biden for an award this week, until we see a little more of the fallout and reaction to his interview this morning. Things could easily go either way for Biden right now, so we're going to wait another week to chime in with any award.

Instead, this week we're going to get a little obscure and award the MDDOTW to the New York State Board of Elections, who just decided to cancel the Democratic presidential primary. They're not canceling the primary election entirely, mind you, just the Democratic presidential part of it. People will still be voting on other offices and issues on the ballot, but they won't be able to cast a vote for Bernie Sanders, even if they would like to do so.

Again, if the Democratic presidential race were the only thing on the ballot, this would be entirely understandable. It would save a bunch of money, and it would avoid needless risk in the middle of a pandemic. But that's not the case, so that excuse doesn't really exist.

Bernie could have racked up some more delegates for the convention in New York, but now he won't have this opportunity. For denying the voters this choice, we have to award the Democratic members of the New York elections board the Most Disappointing Democrats Of The Week award.

[Contact the New York State Board of Elections on their official contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]




Volume 572 (5/1/20)

OK, another mixed bunch this week.

Also, something funny that didn't seem to fit anywhere else, just as an appetizer. Last week, Trump tried to explain away his lethal suggestion that people be injected with bleach or ultraviolet light to cure the coronavirus as "sarcasm," which was pretty outrageous for many reasons (first, he was being serious and not sarcastic at all; second, he was asking the questions to the doctors, not the media; and third, why would any sane leader joke in any way during a deadly pandemic which has killed tens of thousands of Americans?!?).

But the best response to his laughable claim that he was somehow being "sarcastic" came from an unexpected source. Among many others, Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings tweeted out his reaction, which was hilarious: "I would like to announce that when I gave wrong answers on Jeopardy, I was being sarcastic."

Heh. See now, Mister President, that is how sarcasm works!



Maybe you might want to check with your governor, Mitch...

The irony is strong here. So point it out!

"Mitch McConnell recently suggested that states should just go bankrupt rather than getting any aid from the federal government, and even used the term 'blue-state bailout' to try to pin all the blame on places like New York and New Jersey. Donald Trump jumped in to denigrate Illinois and other 'Democrat run' [sic] and 'poorly run states.' Both of them might want to check the facts, however. In the first place, there are some states that consistently get more federal money each year than send in to the Treasury. The third-worst in this category is none other than Kentucky, who in 2018 took in a whopping $147 billion more than they sent in. As for those 'poorly-run' blue states? Well, let's see -- it seems like all of them send more money to the feds that they get each year. New York sent $116 billion more than they got; New Jersey $72 billion more; California $26 billion more; and Illinois sent $22 billion more than they got. This means all these states are bailing out Kentucky and all the other red 'taker' states each and every year. So which states are really better run? And as for Kentucky, Mitch might want to check with his home state's governor, because Kentucky is looking at a shortfall this year of at least $318 billion -- which could even rise to $500 billion. The word used in the report to describe Kentucky's economic outlook was 'bleak.' And the governor plainly stated: 'It will cripple out efforts to rebuild if we don't see a relief package' from the federal government. Might want to think about that before saying state bankruptcy would be such a dandy idea, Mitch."



It's all Obama's fault!

In the "more idiotic attempts to blame Democrats for everything bad that's happening" category, we have our Dear Leader.

"Donald Trump is trying to blame Barack Obama for, quote, broken tests, unquote, for the coronavirus. He also called them 'obsolete' and said that they 'didn't take care of people.' This is laughable in many different ways. In the first place, it is yet another example of Trump dodging any blame for anything, even things that are quite obviously his own fault. Trump is over three years in to his term as president. So even if what he was saying were remotely true -- which it isn't -- he would still be admitting that he himself dropped the ball for three whole years. But even that's laughable because of the clear fact that COVID-19 did not even exist until the year 2019 -- it's right there in the name, as a matter of fact, no matter whether Kellyanne Conway understands that or not. Obama could not possibly be to blame for any COVID-19 tests because he did not possess a time machine while in office. Also, when he left office, President Obama left Trump with a White House pandemic team and a pandemic playbook to use in a crisis. Trump disbanded the team and has completely ignored the playbook for the past five months. And yet he still thinks there are people out there as stupid as he is who will believe that somehow, this all must be Obama's fault. Somehow. This is nothing short of pathetic!"



;Trump's website was going to be better than Obama's

Remember the website that was going to make coronavirus testing smooth and seamless for everyone?

"In one of the earliest briefings from Donald Trump -- after he had wasted six weeks denying that the problem existed, of course -- he announced his wonderful plan that was going to help everyone immediately. He promised that a website would roll out that very weekend that would allow everyone to get instructions on how to get themselves tested for the virus. Here's what he said at the time:



That 'unlike websites of the past' was, of course, a gratuitous dig at the Obamacare signup website. So let's check back in and see how things are going, a full seven weeks later, shall we? It seems that Verily (the Google subsidiary) has only now facilitated 30,000 out of the six million tests performed in the United States. They only got a program up and running last week with Rite Aid, in only eight states. So maybe Trump's right -- maybe people will wind up comparing it to the Obamacare website rollout. Just not in the way he had hoped."



Jared declares mission accomplished

Because of course he did.

"Let's see, we've got tens of millions of pounds of fresh food being plowed under by farmers while food banks have a shortage of food to hand out. We've got a Republican governor protecting his coronavirus test kits by storing them in a secret location and using his own National Guard troops because he's afraid the feds will steal them. We've got millions of small businesses who haven't seen a dime of bailout money while the big corporations are once again making out like bandits. We've got hospitals and states in a Lord Of The Flies world of competing against each other for supplies (which is why those tests in Maryland are under guard, by the way) and the federal government only stepping in to provide the leadership they should when Trump's cheeseburger supply is threatened. We don't have anywhere near the tests we need to reopen safely, and yet multiple states are going to do so anyway and just hope for the best. And we've got no oversight of any of these catastrophes whatsoever. We've got over 1.1 million American infected and over 65,000 deaths -- more Americans dead than in all of the Vietnam War -- and we're still seeing 30,000 new cases a day and 2,000 new deaths a day. Meanwhile, South Korea -- who had their first case on the very same day America did -- just reported a day with no new cases at all. So how's everything going? Well, according to Jared Kushner: 'I think that we've achieved all the different milestones that are needed. So, the government, federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story and I think that that's really what needs to be told.' Great success story? Wow. Unbelievable. If this is a success, I'd hate to see what a failure looks like."



Trump throws a hissy fit

Trump got some bad news this week that he actually paid attention to.

"It was reported this week that Trump threw a tantrum when his own re-election team told him he was losing to Joe Biden not only in national polls, but across all the battleground states as well. He apparently insisted 'I'm not losing to Joe Biden,' although some reports also added an obscene gerund beginning with 'F' to that quote, just before Biden's name. Trump also reportedly threatened to sue his pollster for bringing him bad polling. Trump is down by 3-to-8 points in: Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Ohio. His advisors were desperately trying to get him to stop appearing at the daily pandemic briefings, because this is the singlemost reason why the voters are turning so sour on him. It seems that the more people see of Trump on television, failing to exhibit any leadership and incapable of normal human empathy for the sick and the dead, the less they like him. Trump, however, is still reportedly convinced that he's doing a great job at the briefings. So Democrats everywhere should really hope for as many Trump briefings as possible, because the more of them there are the lower Trump's re-election chances get."



Kimmel calls it right

Maskgate!

"Vice President Mike Pence went to tour the Mayo Clinic this week. He was informed by the clinic beforehand of their policy of requiring everyone who enters to wear a mask. Pence's team even put out a memo to reporters pointing out that they would have to wear a mask on the visit. But then Pence refused to do so and was allowed to tour the clinic anyway, which didn't exactly go over very well. Videos of Pence being the only person in the room without a mask were jarring in the extreme. When confronted, Pence had a rather bizarre explanation: 'I thought it'd be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health-care personnel, and look them in the eye and say thank you.' Except that masks don't cover the eyes, of course. Pence later lied that he hadn't been informed, and then his wife doubled down and repeated the lie, even though the Mayo Clinic stated clearly that he had been informed. Also, Pence threatened a reporter who verified that the press corps had been informed ahead of the visit with banishment from Air Force Two. But late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel had the final word, because he called it exactly right: 'You know the only reason he didn't wear a mask is because Trump won't wear one, right?'"



Noble laureates?

From the "Our president is an idiot" files, entry 42,872:

"Donald Trump got two things massively wrong while rage-tweeting about how unfairly the media has been to him (as they point out his failures and repeat his own empty promises back to him). He complained that reporters should all have to give back their 'Noble Prizes,' or even give them to the 'REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who got it right,' and wondered: 'When will the Noble Committee DEMAND the Prizes back?' As with many things Trump, there is more than one level of idiocy in play here. First, there is no such thing as a 'Noble Prize' or a 'Noble Committee.' Second, Nobel Prizes do not, in fact, exist in the field of journalism. There are, instead, Pulitzer Prizes. But I shudder to think how Trump would mangle the spelling of 'Pulitzer' when he obviously can't even spell 'Nobel'."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
All-time award winners leaderboard, by rank