President Biden: America or Trump?

Yesterday, President Joe Biden walked into a press conference at the White House, and dropped the hammer on insanity.

He was clear, focused, tough and cogent. Age wasn’t an issue yesterday. What I saw was the president of the United States effectively calling out the extremist MAGA House of Representatives, which is a proxy for the Trump campaign and Donald Trump.

Here is what the president said that matters most:

THE STAKES WERE ALREADY HIGH FOR AMERICAN SECURITY AFTER THIS BILL -- BEFORE THIS BILL WAS PASSED IN THE SENATE LAST NIGHT. BUT IN RECENT DAYS THOSE STAKES HAVE RISEN AND THAT'S BECAUSE THE FORMER PRESIDENT HAS SET A DANGEROUS AND SHOCKINGLY, FRANKLY, UN-AMERICAN SIGNAL TO THE WORLD. JUST A FEW DAYS AGO, TRUMP GAVE AN INVITATION TO PUTIN TO INVADE SOME OF OUR NATO ALLIES. HE SAID, IF AN ALLY DIDN'T SPEND ENOUGH MONEY ON DEFENSE, HE WOULD ENCOURAGE RUSSIA TO, QUOTE, DO WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT, END OF QUOTE. CAN YOU IMAGINE? A FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES SAYING THAT. THE WHOLE WORLD HEARD IT. THE WORST THING IS, HE MEANS IT. NO OTHER PRESIDENT IN OUR HISTORY HAS EVER BOWED DOWN TO A RUSSIAN DICTATOR. LET ME SAY THIS AS CLEARLY AS I CAN. I NEVER WILL. FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S DUMB. IT'S SHAMEFUL. IT'S DANGEROUS. IT'S UN-AMERICAN.

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OUR NATION STANDS AT AN INFLECTION POINT. AN INFLECTION POINT IN HISTORY. WHERE THE DECISIONS WE MAKE NOW ARE GOING TO DETERMINE THE COURSE OF OUR FUTURE FOR DECADES TO COME. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS. AND I SAY TO HOUSE MEMBERS, HOUSE REPUBLICANS, YOU GOT TO DECIDE. ARE YOU GOING TO STAND UP FOR FREEDOM OR ARE YOU GOING TO SIDE WITH TERROR AND TYRANNY? YOU'RE GOING TO STAND WITH UKRAINE OR ARE YOU GOING TO STAND WITH PUTIN? WILL YOU STAND WITH AMERICA OR TRUMP? REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS IN THE SENATE CAME TOGETHER TO SEND A MESSAGE OF UNITY TO THE WORLD. IT'S TIME FOR THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO DO THE SAME THING. TO PASS THIS BILL IMMEDIATELY. TO STAND FOR DECENCY, STAND FOR DEMOCRACY, TO STAND UP TO THE SO-CALLED LEADER HELL BENT ON WEAKENING AMERICAN SECURITY. AND I MEAN IT SINCERELY. HISTORY IS WATCHING.

It is a narrative frame that I first used in 2020, and it is more relevant today: America or Trump? President Biden used it, and he laid out the choice with vigor and the ferociousness that will be required for the next 266 days.

President Biden should appear in settings like he did today between 2 - 3 times per day. He must set the agenda, and the reality is that he should make BRIEF, TOUGH and FOCUSED comments. He should NEVER take questions from the White House press corps. EVER. The only deficit in yesterday’s event was the deficient staff work, which required the president to turn and walk a significant distance with the national media focused on his gait and other trivialities.

The only thing that matters is keeping the race about Trump. The White House press corps doesn’t work for the American people, and as a general proposition, most are disinterested in the public good. They work for giant media companies, all of which have financial partnerships with Fox News and a small group of billionaires, and none of them are on your side. The difference between the media and the president is that President Biden is on your side, and the media companies are about making money. The media companies have functioned in a symbiotic relationship with Donald Trump since 2015. They have made billions together, while the foundations of the American way of life have been assaulted for eight years.

Please understand. There is a major war in Europe where the casualty count is approaching one million on both sides. Vladimir Putin sent a message through his useful idiot Tucker Carlson, which is that Russia was nearly 1,000 years old when America was born. He made clear that, in his world, there is no such thing as permanent boundaries, and countries like Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova and half of Poland don’t exist. All that exists is Russia.

This is an exact — and I mean an exact — replica of Hitlerism. It is the ideology that began World War II, which Putin blamed not on Hitler, but on the perfidy of Poland.

NATO is the most powerful military alliance in world history. Its members represent 45 percent of global GDP, and it has prevented World War III for nearly 80 years. Its first commander was Dwight Eisenhower, who was the first president to speak at a NATO summit. Here is what he said:

I am here to continue, with you, NATO's work for a just peace.

I meet with you in Paris--my friends of many years; colleagues in sharing heavy responsibilities and bright opportunity.

This meeting is unique in NATO history. For the first time it is attended by Heads of Governments.

We meet, not under a chilling fear that each nation among us, acting separately and alone, might fail to match the aggressive power that could be brought against any.

That was once true.

We meet, not in any dreadful knowledge that our cities are again, by conflict, scarred and painfully marked, our economies strained, our peoples worn from a war against totalitarianism.

Again, that was once true.

Most certainly, we do not meet in a mood of nationalistic self-assertion, pursuing selfish interests at the expense of our sister nations.

That has never been true of NATO.

We are here to re-dedicate ourselves to the task of dispelling the shadows that are being cast upon the free world. We are here to take store of our great assets--in men, in minds, and in materials. We are here to find ways and means to apply our undoubted strengths to the building of an ample and safer home for mankind here on earth.

This is a time for greatness.

We pray for greatness in courage of will to explore every path of common enterprise that may advance the cause of justice and freedom.

We pray for greatness in sympathy and comradeship that we may labor together to end the mutual differences that hamper our forward march within a mutual destiny.

We pray for greatness in the spirit of self-sacrifice, so that we may forsake lesser objectives and interests to devote ourselves wholly to the well-being of all of us.

We pray for greatness of wisdom and faith that will create in all of us the resolve that whatever measures we take, will be measures for peace!

By peace, I do not mean the barren concept of a world where open war for a time is put off because the competitive war machines, which humans build, tend mutually to neutralize the terrors they create.

Nor by peace do I mean an uneasy absence of strife bought at the price of cowardly surrender of principle. We cannot have peace and ignore righteous aspirations and noble heritages.

The peace we do seek is an expanding state of justice and understanding. It is a peace within which men and women can freely exercise their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In it mankind can produce freely, trade freely, travel freely, think freely, pray freely.

The peace we seek is a creative and dynamic state of flourishing institutions, of prosperous economies, of deeper spiritual insight for all nations and all men.

I do not want to see my son's and daughters’ friends fill up new American military cemeteries in Europe.

The Middle East is exploding. Did you know there have been 168 American casualties in the Middle East since mid-October?

China is engaged in the largest naval power expansion since that of the Japanese navy in the 1930s. They are developing an offensive naval capacity to fight the United States over Taiwan. What keeps the peace is strength. Donald Trump is the greatest tribune of American weakness in American history. He represents decay, corruption and insanity at an epic level. That is what spilled out of his weekend rally where an extremist horde chanted, “F*@k Joe Biden,” and cheered for Putin. It was a vivid example of mass contagion unleashed. It will build all year. Should these people get power, there will be epic catastrophe and death.

This is a serious moment.

It is a dangerous time.

The storm is gathering.

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