Media
Joe Biden
President Joe Biden
Photo by Gage Skidmore/ CC BY 2.0

It is part of the right-wing canon that President Joe Biden is senile, with his mental faculties deteriorated to the point where he must be confined out of sight in his basement to avoid embarrassing himself publicly. This talking point was always a dubious and opportunistic political attack. But Biden’s successful negotiation of the debt ceiling deal demolishes the claim – and the right hasn’t figured out how to handle that.

Republicans and their allied media apparatus have hyped claims of Biden’s purported dementia since the 2020 presidential race. Trumpists on Fox News and elsewhere frequently highlighted Biden’s speech flubs (he has a stammer) and out-of-context video clips to draw attention to his admittedly advanced age and suggest he was “struggling.” At the same time, they attacked Biden for purportedly “hiding in the basement,” suggesting that Biden was eschewing public rallies not due to the pandemic but rather because his campaign was hiding him from voters to avoid scrutiny of his mental acuity.

Biden’s electoral victory did nothing to quell such attacks, with Fox figures regularly and casually describing Biden as “senile,” and extremely online Republican officials like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talking on the campaign trail about the need to send “Joe Biden back to his basement.”

The last week has been brutal for this theory, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden personally negotiating a debt ceiling deal that right-wing media figures call a “total cave” to Democrats that produced “a typical DC swamp sewer bill.” In March, McCarthy offered to bring the president “soft food” to kickstart negotiations, an obvious crack at his age. But on Sunday, after striking a deal, the speaker described Biden to reporters as “very professional, very smart. Very tough at the same time.” The resulting legislation passed the House on Wednesday night and now moves to the Senate.

The right is having difficulty coming to terms with how, as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) put it on Twitter, “Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants.”

Some, like Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity, are treating Biden’s purported senility as entirely unrelated to the result. Hannity was discussing foreign policy as the House began voting on the bill, and said of the president, “We all know he's a cognitive mess, and he has no idea that today is Wednesday.” Minutes later, after the bill passed, Hannity complained that Republicans’ “hand was stronger” and expressed disappointment that they didn’t get more out of their hostage-taking. But he did not apparently consider how a president who didn’t know what day it was had managed to outnegotiate McCarthy.

Others, like Fox’s Jesse Watters, are continuing to talk up Biden’s purported mental frailty while ignoring the debt ceiling negotiations altogether. Watters did not mention the debt ceiling deal at all during Wednesday’s show. But he found time to amplify an actor’s claim that Biden has “obviously declining mental faculties” and to claim that Biden is “going to stay at home, he's not going to campaign” for reelection.

And a third group, headlined by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, is trying to cope with the tension here, albeit without considering that perhaps the problem is that their talking point isn’t true.

It is an embarrassing failure for Bartiromo and company to have spent years telling their audience that Biden is practically a “vegetable,” leaving them woefully unprepared to grapple with evidence of the president’s actual faculties. But don’t expect anything to change – they are all too deeply committed to the bit to alter course at this point.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

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Kevin McCarthy

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

As the June 5 deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit approaches, right-wing media are attacking House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for allegedly capitulating to Democrats’ demands in a tentative budget deal that passed the House on Wednesday evening and moved to the Senate.

The Treasury expects the government to run out of cash by Monday, June 5 if Congress does not raise the debt limit. The bipartisan agreement to raise the debt ceiling until January 2025 would limit spending, expand work requirements for SNAP recipients, end the pause on student loans repayments and interest accrual, and amend environmental impact statements. Despite these concessions from the White House, there are still many conservatives pushing for more.

Biden and McCarthy have both touted the agreement as a bipartisan deal and urged Congress to pass it. While some conservativeshavepraisedthe deal, many in right-wing media are willing to risk a default, urging Congress to reject the agreement and criticizing McCarthy for supposedly striking a bad deal that favors Democrats:

  • Fox News host Laura Ingrahamcomplained that because the debt ceiling deal is being touted by Biden and the Chamber of Commerce, “It should be up to them to get the votes they want. There’s no reason for us to help.”
  • In a series of posts on Gettr, former Trump adviser and current right-wing podcaster Steve Bannondecried the deal as a “total cave” to Democrats’ wishes and called McCarthy a “Total and Complete Sell-Out.” In a statement to Newsweek, Bannon said the debt ceiling agreement was “not acceptable” for conservatives, adding, "This shows no leadership whatsoever.”
  • Bannon also called for conservatives to primary any Republican member of Congress that votes for the agreement: “If you vote for this, you should be and must be primaried.”
  • Conservative radio host Buck Sextonwrote, “With the debt ceiling deal, we’re reminded that conservatism in 2023 is making a series of goal line stands, never crossing into the opponent’s half of the field, and calling that a win.”
  • Appearing on Newsmax’s Eric Bolling The Balance, former Trump adviser Peter Navarrocalled the debt ceiling deal “the McCarthy Memorial Day Weekend Surrender,” and went on to say that McCarthy “got basically nothing” and “took the first off-ramp.” Guest host Carl Higbie urged the House of Representatives to reject the deal, saying, “I'm hoping that enough people see a problem with this and send it back and say, ‘No, no, no. Make it better.’”
  • Former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs criticized McCarthy, tweeting, “The Speaker went to a horse-whipping, not a negotiation! … He got nothing and is waiting for a participation trophy!”
  • Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirktweeted, “Mad about the debt ceiling deal? It’s the neocons who were holding this entire deal hostage. They refused to budge on any cuts to our woke military. We could have had a much better deal if we had a GOP willing to limit $ we send to countries that hate us.”
  • Fox & Friends Sunday co-host Rachel Campos-Duffysaid, “It's a win for McCarthy … but it's a loss for America because this is an unsustainable path, this printing and spending. Just look to Latin America. It doesn't end well, and I don't know how long we can keep doing this.”
  • Right-wing Twitter account Catturdtweeted, “If you didn't know Kevin McCarthy would cave on the debt limit - you don't know Kevin McCarthy.”
  • Fringe conspiracy theorist and failed GOP congressional candidate Laura Loomerwrote: “McCarthy debt ‘deal’ is a disaster,” adding that Trump’s endorsement of McCarthy “is one of the worst decisions he’s ever made.”
  • During an appearance on The Story, Fox contributor and former Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetzsaid, “I would not vote for this bill. I don't think it solves the problem. I think it perpetuates where we are. I just -- I could never vote as a fiscal conservative in favor of this bill. It perpetuates the status quo, I think.”
  • Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardtasked, “Should he [McCarthy] have just let it default?” She reasoned, “Everybody would have blamed Biden at that point if you are not going to get what you want.”
  • On his radio show, Sean Hannity denounced the debt ceiling deal for not cutting enough spending, lamenting it would still continue to fund “pet projects that the Democrats want.”
  • Newsmax’s Eric Bolling said McCarthy “gave away the ranch” to the Democrats with the current agreement, saying McCarthy lost all his leverage and “handed Joe Biden a second term.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.