TEXT JOIN TO 77022

Extra! Extra! Donald ‘The Grinder’ Trump to Meet Joe ‘Baloney’ Biden

When William F. Buckley Jr. was asked why Robert F. Kennedy had refused to appear on his television show Firing Line, Buckley replied, “Why does baloney reject the grinder?” Soon, President Biden may regret not having rejected the grinder.

It was widely portrayed in the media that it was Biden who challenged Trump to debate. Of course that wasn’t true (is anything the media report true?): Trump had been egging Biden on to debate for weeks. Finally, Biden, in a fit of irrationality (or perhaps senility?), “accepted,” though it was portrayed by the media as Biden challenging Trump. Trump agreed to debate immediately, and as one observer pointed out, when your opponent accepts your first offer, you know you’ve offered too much.

We know some of the rules for the debate (microphones will be turned off except when the person speaking is answering a question), but there may be others we don’t know about yet. And some observers have opined that, in the end, the debates won’t happen because additional conditions—sought by the Biden team when they fully realize the danger of Biden’s meeting Trump head-on—will be unacceptable to Trump. The Biden team may conclude that the embarrassment of pulling out (if they aren’t successful in pinning the blame on Trump) is better than being destroyed by Trump.

People who have watched Biden on television don’t need to be told that he’s slipping. Even if Biden is pumped up on whatever drugs the White House uses to pump him up (see his State of the Union address and his remarks at the D-Day ceremonies), he won’t be agile enough to respond convincingly to the questions and accusations that Trump can hurl at him while answering questions posed to him.

Here are a few questions Trump can ask Biden, always calling him “Mr. President” to show that he respects the office, if not the man (Trump needs to court the moderates).

Trump: Mr. President, on May 8 of this year, you said inflation was 9 percent when you came into office. Then on May 14 of this year, you again said inflation was at 9 percent when you came into office, but you added, “It’s now down around 3 percent.

Well, Mr. President, people do have a right to be concerned because in January 2021, when I left office and you took office, inflation was only 1.4 percent. Inflation didn’t reach 9 percent until June 2022, after you had signed into law the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, described by Larry Summers as the “least responsible” economic policy in forty years.

Mr. President, Why do you keep claiming that inflation was 9 percent when you came into office?

Pause for a biobreak to keep the Biden family’s dry cleaning bill down.

Trump: Mr. President, on July 28, 2023, you said, “This morning, we saw data showing that last month the annual rate of inflation continued to decline. So inflation is now at its lowest point in two years. And wages are up after being adjusted for inflation.”

But that’s not true, Mr. President. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real weekly wages have declined about 4.5 percent since January 2021. Average weekly work hours have fallen over your time, and inflation-adjusted hourly wages are down 2.7 percent. Why do you persist in saying wages are up?

Pause for commercial break advertising abortion services for men and women.

Trump: Mr. President, on September 4, 2023, in your Labor Day speech in Philadelphia, you said, “And even with what we’ve done—unlike the last president—in my first two years, all this stuff— . . . guess what? I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion. Here’s the bottom line: my economic plan is working. It’s reducing the deficit.”

Mr. President, that’s baloney. The average yearly deficit during your presidency is almost $2 trillion, and the Congressional Budget Office has just revised its forecast and now says the 2024 deficit will be $1.9 trillion. During my presidency, the average deficit pre-COVID was only $0.81 trillion per year. And even including COVID in 2020, the average yearly deficit during my presidency was only $1.95 trillion.

Hushed conversations among the Biden staff: “How do we get out of this mess?”

Trump: Mr. President, in August 2023, you said, in Utah, “We’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to meet their basic needs.”

That’s just not true, Mr. President, as you must know—if your advisors have told you—fuel is up by 42 percent since you took office, gasoline is up 55 percent, electricity is up 28 percent, and natural gas is up 22 percent. Also, since January 2021, chicken prices are up 22 percent, egg prices are up 95 percent, and milk prices are up 11.5 percent. You need to pay attention to what real people are paying at the store.

Mr. President, on March 19 in Las Vegas, you said, “But here’s the deal: my new budget works to lower housing costs for owners and renters alike today.”

Well, here’s the real deal, Mr. President: during your presidency, the median price of a home has risen 114.5 percent, and average prices paid by consumers have risen 19.3 percent. Mr. President, have you not been told those facts? Do you not remember them? Or are you simply trying to deceive the American people?

And finally, Mr. President, people in your administration have claimed that the stock market has broken economic records across the board, one of them saying that it hit an all-time high under you, not under me.

That’s not true. The stock market’s performance was consistently better under my administration than under yours. Even the New York Times — the New York Times! — said in April of this year that when you factor in inflation, the stock market has not actually reached new heights.

Mr. President, as I have tried to make clear to the American voters, what you have said during your presidency is a lot of baloney. A key question for the voters is, do you know what you’ve said is baloney—are you trying to pull the wool over the voters’ eyes—or are you, the president of the United States, simply uninformed?

There are many more issues Trump could bring up in a second debate, like Biden’s claim that he was appointed to the Naval Academy. Even the New York Times has criticized Biden’s storytelling: “The exaggerated biography that Mr. Biden tells includes having been a fierce civil rights activist who was repeatedly arrested. He has claimed to have been an award-winning student who earned three degrees. And . . . speaking on the hurricane-devastated island of Puerto Rico, he said he had been ‘raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.’”

But will there be a second debate? Not likely. One debate may be more than enough to finish Biden off. If Jimmy the Greek were still alive, he’d be betting 9 to 1 against a second debate between the Grinder and the Baloney.

Daniel Oliver is Chairman of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.

Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.

Get the news corporate media won't tell you.

Get caught up on today's must read stores!

By submitting your information, you agree to receive exclusive AG+ content, including special promotions, and agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms. By providing your phone number and checking the box to opt in, you are consenting to receive recurring SMS/MMS messages, including automated texts, to that number from my short code. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to end. SMS opt-in will not be sold, rented, or shared.

About Daniel Oliver

Daniel Oliver is chairman of the board of the Education and Research Institute and a director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was executive editor and subsequently chairman of the board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. Email him at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.

Photo: TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump (L), Democratic Presidential candidate former US Vice President Joe Biden and moderator, NBC News anchor, Kristen Welker (C) participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22, 2020. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CHIP SOMODEVILLA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Start the discussion at community.amgreatness.com