Joe Biden is pushing back at Republican assertions that he should take a cognitive test to disprove President Donald Trump’s claim that the Democrat isn’t fit for the Oval Office.
Biden grew testy when CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett asked the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee about the matter in a recent interview.
“No, I haven’t taken a test? Why the hell would I take a test?” Biden said.
He then told Barnett: “That’s like saying … before you got on this program, you’re taking a test whether you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”
The former vice president, who is 77, also tried to turn the matter back around on the 74-year-old president in the latest jousting over the two men’s fitness for office.
“Well, if he can’t figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Biden said, appearing to refer to Trump’s public discussion about his own clinical examinations that physicians often give older patients to identify early signs of dementia.
Biden’s exchange with Barnett was part of an interview conducted with the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It was scheduled to air in full on Thursday.
In a recent interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, Trump hailed his own mental acuity by referencing his recent examinations. Trump framed his results as a sign of intellectual prowess. He recalled in another Fox News interview that he successfully repeated back to a physician a series of words he’d been given audibly: “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”
Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised questions about whether Biden has been administered such an examination.
Biden told reporters in June that he is “constantly tested” by the rigors of the presidential campaign and said he’s eager to match wits against Trump in fall debates. He repeated those sentiments with Barnett.
“I’m so forward-looking to have an opportunity to sit with the president or stand with the president and the debates,” Biden said. He later said he was “very willing to let the American public judge my physical, mental — my physical, as well as my mental fitness and to, you know, to make a judgment about who I am.”
Allies of both Trump and Biden often seize on the other’s verbal slips. Both men have provided enough material to generate widely shared video mashups of their mistakes. Biden’s third White House bid has drawn renewed attention on his lifelong struggle as a stutterer.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of political communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said voters and the media should try to discern whether presidential candidates have the reasoning skills and temperament to handle the job. But she cautioned against using verbal inaccuracies to settle on a conclusion.
“You don’t always know what that means,” Jamieson said, adding that biases about age can influence how voters and media treat an older candidate’s syntax. “But you do know when you have an exchange in real time whether a person can handle the questions and answers and as a result is able to function” in the White House.
“Some cues don’t really say anything about governance,” Jamieson said. “If you can’t focus, that’s a problem. If you can’t provide a coherent answer, that’s a problem. (But) sometimes what you’re seeing, it may be annoying, but it doesn’t speak to a person’s capacity to govern.”
(AP)
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24 Responses
It is a false narrative that he is in decline so he answered why would i take a test. He is right. He made an analogy to drug testing in regard to the reporter. The trump campaign keeps posting photoshopped images of biden to make him appear alone and frail but that is not a concern for the Yeshiva world. Sad testament.
‘A lying, dog-faced pony soldier’
This elections will be the first in US history between sitting president and vice-presidential nominee.
Biden Explodes I wish him the same downfall as Howard Dean received for this same offense.
the answer to the question is because you’re dumb
AO, NYT is reporting that Trump administration got these photo-shopped pictures of Biden from Russians.
Biden should offer to take a cognitive test on the day Trump releases his tax returns. We’ll know if Biden is cognitive and if Trump is a crook, all in the same day.
Biden is not competent enough to be president.
We DONT need him to take a test!
Everyone can see clearly he is NOT ALL THERE! Period!
Even if he was, NO ONE should vote for him, his ideals are bad for the country.
Kol shkain when he is becoming insane.
He can’t even complete the sentence about his mental health. He fumbles the the entire ending.
“This elections will be the first in US history between sitting president and vice-presidential nominee.”
That’s incorrect. (Reagan vs. Mondale in 1984, etc.)
So it’s ok to have associations of black and Hipanic journalists? Isn’t it racist? Would the left be ok with an association for white journalists?
This video was the best laugh I had since his last gaffe, about a day ago. Seriously, the man has jello for a brain. Not even raspberry, probably lime…yuck
“Person, woman, man, camera, TV … person, woman, man, camera, TV … person, woman, man, camera, TV …” It’s really hard for me to imagine any candidate more qualified than the man who was able to repeat these five words over and over.
Does the test give results in negative numbers too?
Hey ladies and gents, this guy stands a good chance of being the commander in chief!
Stop making fun of Joe, he can’t help the fact that he can’t think straight. Leave elderly slightly demented people alone!
Even if your quoting someone doesn’t mean you can lower the basic formal standard that this website has had till now it would be appreciated Not to use this language ty
RevisionistHistory Buff, only gullible fools like you need to see Biden’s cognitive test results to be convinced that he is demented and senile. And when are we going to see your tax returns on this forum to know that you are not a crook.
I’m all for Biden taking a cognitive test AFTER our aged Gedolim take one…
Trump has a secret weapon that he is going to use at the first debate, He is going to show everyone that he got a perfect 10 apgar score. Fox news and ilk will then demand from Biden that he show his apgar score. When he can’t, they will develop a conspiracy theory that he probably failed and is hiding something.
By the election, the Russians, Birthers, Mentals , and Postals all will be trying to help trump win.
MIG:
I tried to grasp your thinking, but couldn’t. We do not need to see Biden’s test results. We see the obvious, and we know it without a doubt. What is perplexing is that the Democrats are running a name for president who is unable to manage anything, let alone the rigors of being Commander-in Chief. It isn’t about innocence or guilt for which one is innocent until proven otherwise. All you say definitively about Trump is that you hate him, and you are entitled to that. Otherwise, multiple efforts to turn him into a criminal have flopped. And with the revelations that will come from Durham, we will see those efforts backfire. Biden’s impairment are public knowledge. He will need to be propped up, maybe even physically if he gets into office. His policies are not dictated by him, but by the political machine, more and more under the rotten influence of the terror-loving, America-hating Squad and such rogues.
It isn’t about tax returns. I never held they should be public, nor did I believe they should be withheld. The activities of his pre-political years are not relevant. No one cares about what Biden did before entering politics. It’s what he did as a politician that deserves scrutiny, as well as his campaign activities. And he seems to not understand what is asked (explaining his nearly 3 months without a press conference), and his answers to anything remotely confrontational are bizarre, as well as accusatory and nasty.
To have people like many of the Dems running the Executive branch by proxy is a frightening threat.
the guy is so dumb, and his answer made him sound even stupider… just shows what a lair he is
Crazy uncle Joe step into another one today calling black community not being diverse enough.
Don’t u see it? The Dems are propping Biden as a figurehead to lead a puppet govt. And who will pull the strings? The progressive evils with their socialist agendas.