Monday, July 15, 2024

Joe Sure Is Nervous

I double checked the president's schedule, just to be sure I didn't get anything wrong: he addressed the nation from Rehoboth at 8:00 PM Saturday night, then again at 1:30 yesterday afternoon, and he spoke yet again at 8:00 PM last evening. At the afternoon remarks,

"We don't yet have any information about the motive of the shooter, we know who he is," the president said Sunday, without naming the suspect, who was identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper after opening fire.

"I urge everyone, everyone please, don't make assumptions about his motives or his affiliations," the president said. "Let the FBI do their job and their partner agencies do their job. I've instructed that this investigation be thorough and swift, and the investigators will have every resource they need to get this done."

The president said the independent security review of Saturday's rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, will assess "exactly what happened," and the results of that review will be made public.

The problem is, of course, that the suspicion that the shooter somehow intended to support the Biden campaign by taking out Trump is unavoidable. Attorney General Garland's extremely uncertain glance back at Joe at 0:14 as they exit the room is an indication that he's sweating as well -- Joe and Garland are acutely aware that Trump is going to win in November, and Garland's role will be scrutinized then, but meanwhile, nobody trusts either Garland or the FBI to conduct an impartial investigation.

Another problem has been reports that the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service had consistently turned down requests from the Trump campaign for increased security, repeated after the Butler event by former agent Dan Bongino:

While the Secret Service has emphatically denied reports that Trump’s security detail asked for, and were denied, reinforcements, Bongino says he can prove otherwise. “I can tell you actual quotes,” he said on Sunday.

“I can tell you, and absolutely confirm, from the horse's mouth, from multiple people ... there have been repeated requests to increase the security footprint, around not just the residences of Donald Trump, but the body itself,” the former Secret Service agent said. “And they have been rebuffed.”

Rep Michael Walz, a member of the House Oversight Committee, made the same point and has indicated there will be briefings and hearings on the matter: Apparently in response, Joe said this:

First, Mr. Trump, as a former president and nominee of the Republican Party already receives a heightened level of security, and I have been consistent in my direction to the Secret Service to provide him with every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to ensure his continued safety.

Second, I’ve directed the head of the Secret Service to review all security measures for the — all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start tomorrow.

But these are just brave words, and there's nothing specific about any increase in Trump's protection going forward. According to a piece by Susan Crabtree at Real Clear Politics,

The Secret Service briefed reporters Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee about the status of security at the convention but declined to discuss any possible lapses before and during Trump’s Saturday rally. The spokeswoman expressed confidence in the agency’s security plan for the Republican convention, which begins today in Milwaukee.

Despite reports that the agency was strengthening some aspects of security after the attempted assassination against Trump, the spokeswoman said there are no changes to the original plan and noted that the agency believes it has the resources it needs to execute it.

Joe's third appearance over the weekend was Sunday evening's seven-minute national address from the Oval Office that said nothing new but was almost a self-parody of gaffes and malapropisms:

“In America, we resolve our differences at the Battle Box,” Biden could be heard saying at one point. “Now, that’s how we do it, at the Battle Box. Not with bullets.”

. . . “Tonight, I’m asking every American to recommit to make America so….make America….well, think about it, what’s made America so special,” Biden continued, appearing to stumble on trying to find a way to say, “make America Great Again” without using those words.

In fact, Joe, at a loss for words, is nevertheless talking up a storm -- three special appearances in front of the cameras in three days. Clearly something has made him deeply worried. Part of it must certainly be that even on the left, it's being acknowledged that the assassination attempt has put the election out of reach for Joe's campaign. According to The Guardian, for instance,

All of this could not come at a worse time for Biden. His campaign, I don’t need to tell you, is in complete disarray. Day after day there has been headline after headline about the president being too frail and feeble for office. . . . Now that contrast has been extraordinarily heightened. Trump is the guy who jumps straight up after being fired at by an assassin; Biden is the guy who stumbles up the stairs. If you’re an undecided voter swayed by which candidate looks more presidential, your mind just got made up.

But that can't be the whole explanation. Biden, as well as Garland at this point, must be lookng at what's going to come out of the investigations, and as Rep Cory Mills put it to Fox News yesterday, "Bottom line is that this is massive negligence to the point of me speculating on what was intentional and what wasn't".

They aren't nervous about the election. They're resigned to that by this point. They're nervous about what's going to come afterward. Just as one example, Garland has been refusing to provide the House Republicans with the tapes of Hur's interview with Joe, presumably on the basis that they would feed speculation about Joe's cognitive state and affect the election. But the election at this point is as good as over, and come January, Garland's Republican successor is going to have those tapes and a whole lot more, whatever Garland refuses to give up now.

They're really, really nervous, not because of the election, but because of what they know will come after it.

posted by test @ July 15, 2024   0 Comments