ATLANTA (AP) — Joe Biden is pushing back at Republican assertions that he should take a cognitive test to disprove President Donald Trump’s claim that the Democrat isn’t fit for the Oval Office.
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Biden grew testy when CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett asked the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee about the matter in a recent interview.
“No, I haven’t taken a test? Why the hell would I take a test?” Biden said.
He then told Barnett: “That’s like saying … before you got on this program, you’re taking a test whether you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”
The former vice president, who is 77, also tried to turn the matter back around on the 74-year-old president in the latest jousting over the two men’s fitness for office.
“Well, if he can’t figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Biden said, appearing to refer to Trump’s public discussion about his own clinical examinations that physicians often give older patients to identify early signs of dementia.
Biden’s exchange with Barnett was part of an interview conducted with the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It was scheduled to air in full on Thursday.
In a recent interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, Trump hailed his own mental acuity by referencing his recent examinations. Trump framed his results as a sign of intellectual prowess, recalling that he successfully repeated back to a physician a series of words he’d been given audibly. “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV,” he repeated to Wallace.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised questions about whether Biden has been administered such an examination.
Biden told reporters in June that he is “constantly tested” by the rigors of the presidential campaign and said he’s eager to match wits against Trump in fall debates. He repeated those sentiments with Barnett.
“I’m so forward-looking to have an opportunity to sit with the president or stand with the president and the debates,” Biden said. He later said he was “very willing to let the American public judge my physical, mental — my physical, as well as my mental fitness and to, you know, to make a judgment about who I am.”
Allies of both Trump and Biden often seize on the other’s verbal slips. Both men have provided enough material to generate widely shared video mashups of their mistakes. Biden’s third White House bid has drawn renewed attention on his lifelong struggle as a stutterer.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of political communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said voters and the media should try to discern whether presidential candidates have the reasoning skills and temperament to handle the job. But she cautioned against using verbal inaccuracies to settle on a conclusion.
“You don’t always know what that means,” Jamieson said, adding that biases about age can influence how voters and media treat an older candidate’s syntax. “But you do know when you have an exchange in real time whether a person can handle the questions and answers and as a result is able to function” in the White House.
“Some cues don’t really say anything about governance,” Jamieson said. “If you can’t focus, that’s a problem. If you can’t provide a coherent answer, that’s a problem. (But) sometimes what you’re seeing, it may be annoying, but it doesn’t speak to a person’s capacity to govern.”
Ap garbage. Now Biden is a lifelong stutterer?? And Trump makes verbal gaffes? He says things a certain way that ap likes to call gaffes. FAKE NEWS!!
‘cuz you have DEMENTIA or alzheimers – that’s why. and don’t hide in the basement. let all of America see you talk and move around BY YOURSELF without any guidance
Dementia Joe thinks all black people are junkies.
He should have answered when Trump shows his tax returns and Mexico pays for the wall.
Or when Trump has a plan for Americans to stop dying from corona.
But he knows how to pronounce Yosemite.
Wake up Yidden and don’t hide behind your illusions. Vote for the man that was there for you! TRUMP 2020!
This is the new Republican “Obama Birth Certificate” hoax.
It can never be proven one way or the other to their satisfaction. They can use it over and over again on fox news and scare their base that the democrats put in another illegitimate president.
Take a test? He won’t remember where and when
Yawn! Booooooooring
He won’t be the nominee. He’s mentally impaired so they’re hiding him.
But he’ll make a bonanza gaffe any day now anyway ,
He’s going to meet with world leaders ??The DNC will panic like rats in a corner.
Uncle Joe has a racist anti-black past.
Right, Sen. Byrd??
Now you just go right ahead and make the addled Joe president because he can pronounce ” Yosemite “.. Haaaa.
Or can he ?
Where is he anyway ?
Oh, a lifelong stutterer….., I see.
So let him out to play golf_ or answer questions, or get some fresh air at least.No need to talk, just smile.
A stutterer…
Here’s an idea:
Let “dr. ” Fowchee examine his cognition in the name of science.
Maybe Unk only has flu-like symptoms_ and what he needs is to escape the basement , party mingle and chow down plateloads of chow mein with drumsticks.
Have him throw out a first ball at a Braves game.
So that’s why Biden was able to wiggle out of serving this Country, when his country needed him most, in Vietnam. He had a stuttering problem. Wow. A real patriot.
All the Helige Yidden demanding Biden take a Cognitive Test, would you be OK with asking the “Sar HaTorah” to take one before issuing Life and Death rulings?
So the choice we have to make is:
Do we choose someone whose cognitive abilities are impaired or someone whose personal life is immoral but has set this country upright? We need to vote for the good of the country, not personal imperfections.
He weeks ago he told cnn that he was tested and passed with flying colors. Now he says no way man I’m not being tested either a poor liar or senility has. Getting worse. Either way how can you vote for a man who doesn’t no where he is