Urging 77-year-old former Vice President and Democratic Nominee Joe Biden to not debate 74-year-old President Donald Trump, 80-year old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) showed she’s still the “Wily Coyote.” Addressing her rubber stamps in the press, Pelosi said Biden should stay clear of Trump because he’ll “probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency,” Pelosi said, whatever that means. It’s hard to know whether or not Pelosi recalls from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s three debates in 2016 with Trump or whether she knows what Biden’s up against. Any superficial analysis of the 2016 debates shows that Hillary did not clean Trump’s clock as expected. If anything, Hillary, one of the most polished politicians in modern times, was supposed to humiliate the less experienced and knowledgeable New York real estate tycoon in the debates.
Pelosi knows, but won’t admit it, that Trump held his own with Hillary on most substantive issues, including the economy and foreign policy. Like Hillary in 2016, Joe is most vulnerable on the economy and foreign policy, having made a number of blunders while serving for eight years as former President Barack Obama’s vice president. Pelosi knows Joe’s vulnerabilities, both in terms of experience and capability to recite certain facts connected with the economy and foreign policy. “Don’t tell anybody who told you this—especially don’t tell Joe Biden—I doesn’t think that there should be any debates, “ Pelosi said, sounding more confused than every. “Don’t tell anybody who told you this,” Pelosi said in a clear non sequitur. Pelosi has so much hatred for Trump she barely sounds coherent. Instead of admitting Joe’s vulnerable in a one-on-one debate, Pelosi blasts Trump for not telling the truth.
When Pelosi said Trump doesn’t tell the truth, what’s it about? Everything? “I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States,” Pelosi said making no sense. Trump won’t state the facts as she knows them, the same way Pelosi or Biden makes up the facts of their own. Does Nancy believe she or Joe are the ultimate fact checkers? It’s obvious from the two conventions, both political parties are light years apart on practically everything, certainly on managing the economy and foreign policy. Trump’s made clear he thinks the Iraq War was the biggest blunder in U.S. history, costing the U.S. trillions of dollars without any benefits. Biden and Pelosi supported the Iraq War, Trump did not.
When it’s a debate over facts, evidence or data, does Pelosi really think that rival presidential candidates will have the same position on the economy, foreign policy, health care, infrastructure or anything else? Pelosi knows that Trump can debate on all the hot-button topics or he wouldn’t have survived the 2016 grueling Republican primaries that pressed him on all the hot topics. “I thought what he did in 2016 [election] was disgraceful, stalking Hillary Clinton like that,” Pelosi said, a frequent complaint by Hillary to excuse her otherwise lackluster debate performance. When you consider Hillary’s preparation compared with Joe’s, Trump should have a far easier time getting his points across than with Hillary. Joe’s capacity to recall facts pale in comparison to Hillary, promising some tough sledding ahead. Trump’s four years older but more in charge of facts than ever.
Pelosi doen’t want Joe to debate because he’s up in the polls and worried that he could do himself in. As long as he’s carefully managed by carefully edited TV ads, Joe’s got his talking points down. Once he’s in an impromptu situation, it’s going to be another story. “I was disappointed that the press didn’t say, ‘Go back to your station. You’re not here. You don’t own this stage,’” Pelosi said. Pelosi exaggerates Trump’s movementa in the 2016 debates, doing far better than anyone expected, especially against Hillary. Pelosi doesn’t want Joe to debate because she has no confidence that he can hold his own. Joe hasn’t been testing by the Democrat–friendly press, getting softball questions in interviews. When Joe does get asked unscripted questions, he gets surly when he can’t answer or question or doesn’t want to. If Trump’s anything like he was with Hillary, Joe’s got his work cut out for him.
Pelosi showed she can blow smoke with the best of them, even at her advanced age. Running her mouth with the press sometimes gets Nancy into trouble, this time urging Joe not to debate Trump. If Joe backed down, he would loose a substantial percentage of prospective voters, realizing that he’s not really up to the task, as Republicans have suggested about Joe. “I’m going forward to debate him,” Joe said. “Now I know for certain . . . I’m going to be a fact checker on the floor while I’m debating him,” Joe said, running a big risk of getting knocked off his train of thought. Judging by his lapses on the campaign trail, playing fact-checker would only play into Trump’s hands, distracting Joe too much. “I think everybody know this man has a somewhat pathological tendency not to tell the truth,” Biden said, repeating his campaign talking points.
