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  • I'm not sure I've ever seen Republicans scramble like this to get their talking points straight, which is REALLY saying something because Republicans, to their credit, are usually excellent at coordinating their messaging.

  • But CLEARLY, the panic has set in, considering they have spent the last three years claiming that Joe Biden is tired, senile, low energy, in the throes of cognitive decline, and in doing so, they have effectively lowered the bar to the BASEMENT ahead of tomorrow's debate.

  • And so recognizing that they've made it so that all Biden has to do is SHOW UP to exceed expectations, the GOP has been scrambling now to explain away what they CLEARLY believe will be an overperformance by Biden.

  • And so this was the initial talking point that went out from Ronny Jackson, the guy who single-handedly worries me about how lax the Medical Licensing Board's qualifications must be.

  • Those drugs are out there, they treat the cognition part of it, they try to make it where he can think straighter and he's not lost and confused as much.

  • And then there's drugs that actually just increase alertness like Adderall and other types of amphetamine-type drugs, maybe Provigil, things like that.

  • And then there's a host of drugs that try to take the agitated edge off of most of these cognitive disorders.

  • So I feel like they're probably giving him a little bit of all of this, they just have to get it just right.

  • They all have different times of onset, they have different duration, they interact with each other, so it's, you know, it's a challenge.

  • But I think they have no choice with what they're working with, they don't have much to work with.

  • And of course we have two major problems here in terms of invoking specific drugs.

  • The first is that the idiots that make up the Republican Party, like Margie Tiller-Green and Lauren Boebert, clearly won't be able to speak to the uses, impacts, side effects, and so on of specific drugs.

  • And there's the fact that it is all utter nonsense.

  • You cannot cure cognitive decline with Provigil or Adderall.

  • And so they had to settle on a new excuse, and when I tell you that it is stupid even by Republican standards, consider yourselves warned.

  • Trump's team should not underestimate Joe Biden and his team's ability to, you know, whether they're going to jack him up on Mountain Dew or whatever it is, that, look, the State of the Union this year, he had a lot of energy for about an hour, or an hour and a half.

  • Which Joe Biden's going to show up.

  • Look, my summary is this, it doesn't matter if he drinks a whole gallon of energy drinks, he's not going to be able to match the acumen and the readiness of Donald Trump.

  • And that's what we expect.

  • Energy drinks.

  • Mountain Dew.

  • That's the new cure-all for cognitive decline.

  • We've got scientists working for years for cures to age-related diseases, and all this time the answer was carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, and yellow 5.

  • And by the way, not to actually humor any of this nonsense, but if the cure for cognitive decline was actually just soda, well guess what?

  • Soda is readily available.

  • We've got plenty in this country, certainly in the White House, so if it's the magic cure, good news, there's no shortage.

  • So I guess we're all good now as far as Joe Biden is concerned, since we've got, you know, soda.

  • And let's be clear, the absurdity of this new revelation wasn't lost on anyone.

  • Here's Donny Deutch putting this ridiculousness on full display.

  • He's on Mountain Dew, or he's on cocaine, or he's— Let me do the Dew.

  • You're going to do the Dew too?

  • I'm going to do the Dew live, because this is, if you weren't watching in the last hour, this is what a Republican congressman said that Joe Biden's going to do for the debate.

  • He's going to be hopped up on Mountain Dew.

  • You've got to chug though, I would recommend that you chug, that was a polite sip.

  • Take it with you as a parting gift.

  • It's on John.

  • It's nice, right?

  • It hits every time.

  • Donny, thanks so much, Donny, see?

  • It does jack you up.

  • And of course this follows a long pattern of Republicans humiliating themselves while trying to prop up their own conspiracy theories.

  • Remember, they just finished a 16 month investigation into Joe Biden's purported criminality in which their smoking gun was a guy who literally got indicted by the FBI for lying on behalf of the Russians.

  • And so it should come as no surprise that the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan and James Comer would now settle on their new disinformation campaign of trying to explain away their own conspiracy theory that Biden has dementia, and the way they're going to do that is by now claiming that Mountain Dew cures dementia.

  • It's like they have no choice but to follow each bout of stupidity with an even stupider bout of stupidity.

  • Although, frankly, it's not these lawmakers who look the most foolish, even though they're really made to look like fools here are the Republican supporters.

  • It is their audience.

  • Because, let's be clear, Jim Jordan and James Comer and the rest of these clowns know that Joe Biden is not just fine, but effective.

  • According to Politico, for example, McCarthy mocked Biden's age and mental acuity in public while privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations, a contradiction that left a deep impression on the White House.

  • And so THEY know who Joe Biden is, but their job is to keep up the ruse.

  • Because they're not trying to fool themselves, they're trying to fool the rubes who trust them.

  • That's the saddest part of all of this.

  • The joke at the end of the day is on the Republican base that is being groomed to believe utter nonsense that people smart enough to know better want them to believe.

  • I've said it before and I'll say it again, Republicans may claim to hate Democrats, but there is no one they hate more than their own supporters.

  • In fact, if you need proof of what it looks like when Republicans are actually held to account for what they say and ask for proof of the bullshit they spread, here's David Cain on exactly that provisional adderall.

  • I don't know.

  • Whatever.

  • But he's on something that's I mean, let's open him up because he's a different about those.

  • Let's talk about let's talk about Adderall and provisional.

  • Now we're in substance.

  • Now we're getting into it.

  • Right.

  • Well, Adderall and Ritalin, they work four to six hours.

  • The idea that Byron Donald's presented on your channel that by the end of a one hour speech, he's fading. how Adderall and Ritalin work.

  • And Adderall and Ritalin famously don't cover up cognitive decline.

  • And when there is cognitive decline can generate anxiety and more difficulty speaking.

  • So Adderall, Ritalin wouldn't do what you're saying.

  • So you're saying there's no drug.

  • There's no drug that could be serving as a performance answer for Joe Biden.

  • You're jumping ahead.

  • Let me get let me get through it.

  • So Adderall and Ritalin wouldn't do what what you're suggesting.

  • Provisional has a 12 to 15 hour duration.

  • So again, like Byron Donald goes, you can tell because it wears off at the end of an hour.

  • It doesn't work that way.

  • And also provisional effect on dementia is zero.

  • So now let me turn it around to you.

  • You tell me the drug.

  • It's weird to say, I think there might be a drug.

  • David, tell me which one it is.

  • You tell me what drug would do what you're suggesting.

  • To be fair.

  • OK, you've done two things here.

  • OK, and we're shifting burdens of proof.

  • But my burden of proof is not.

  • You asserted drugs and I'm asking you what drugs.

  • I did not.

  • I did not.

  • Hold on.

  • Walk with me here.

  • First, the Byron Donald's argument is a straw man with me because you specifically rebutted that it wears off.

  • I never said that.

  • And I don't think that undercuts or abides the idea that he could be that he could be on some type of performance answer.

  • I also didn't make the affirmative statement that he is on performance answers.

  • What I said to you is you have contended that's absurd.

  • Look at the guy.

  • This is evidence of his cognitive abilities that he can rally for these big moments.

  • What I'm telling you is my co-host or anybody else who says or somebody sitting at the backyard barbecue says he's injected on all kinds of things to ramp him up for the debate is not an absurd supposition.

  • I don't have to prove the affirmative on it.

  • I just have to tell you, you rejecting it is the burden of proof.

  • You can't reject.

  • And I think you have a hard hill to climb to say there's no way he's on anything like that.

  • In order to say it's not an absurd suggestion, you have to at least plausibly bring a specific substance known to man that would do what is being alleged, which is it would take someone suffering from cognitive decline who struggles to even understand what he's saying and make them coherent in the way that it is being described.

  • So the burden of proof is on those who say it's plausible to say, here's the list of drugs that could do it.

  • And even now, here's one of the one I don't want to jump in before you jump in.

  • I wouldn't expect you to come up with the right drug because yesterday morning, Dr. Ronny Jackson on Fox News couldn't even propose what drug would do it.

  • If the pill guy from Air Force One can't suggest it, I know you're not going to be able to.

  • So my advice to Republicans, who certainly will not take it, is to do yourselves a favor and stop embarrassing yourselves.

  • And instead of trying to explain away your own conspiracies about Biden's mental state with even dumber conspiracies about Biden's mental state, maybe take some responsibility for your own nominee who on a GOOD DAY thinks that Obama is still the president, who thinks that you need ID to buy bread, who thinks that Nikki Haley was in charge of the Capitol on January 6th, who thinks that Jeb Bush got us involved in the war in the Middle East, and the list goes on and on.

  • At a bare minimum, maybe you might want to offer him some Mountain Dew, although even that drink's magical powers likely won't be strong enough to fix whatever's broken with Donald Trump.

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I'm not sure I've ever seen Republicans scramble like this to get their talking points straight, which is REALLY saying something because Republicans, to their credit, are usually excellent at coordinating their messaging.

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