It’s gut-wrenching to see how many Trump Republicans are running to confirm his big lie, when we know they know we know they know they don’t believe a single word they say. That’s Dr. Oz and JD Vance and so many others. Nevertheless, they are ready to hitch a ride on the Trump train to come to power. And they do it without even blushing.
It bottomed out, I believe, when Kevin McCarthy, leader of the House minority group, so obsessed with becoming Speaker of the House at all costs, was actually lying about telling the truth.
McCarthy publicly denied that immediately after January 6, he explicitly told his Republican colleagues (and on tape) that he expected Trump to be impeached for inspiring the insurgency and that McCarthy intended to tell him to step down.
Who in your life have you ever met who? lied about telling the truth?
And this brings me back to my lunch with Biden. It clearly weighs on him that we have built a global alliance to support Ukraine, reverse the Russian invasion and defend America’s core principles abroad – the right to liberty and self-determination of all peoples – while the GOP is our most cherished principles let go at home.
That’s why so many Allied leaders have said privately to Biden, as he and his team have revived the Western alliance from the shattered pieces Trump left it in, “Thank God – America is back.” And then they add, “But for how long?”
Biden cannot answer that question. Because WE cannot answer that question.
Biden is not flawless in this dilemma, and neither is the Democratic Party — especially its far-left wing. Pressured to revive the economy, and faced with huge requests from the far left, Biden went on for too long with expansive spending. House Democrats also sullied one of Biden’s most important two-pronged achievements — a mammoth infrastructure bill — by holding it hostage to other outrageous spending demands. The far left also saddled Biden and every Democratic nominee with such radical notions as “downgrading the police” — an insane mantra that would have hurt the Democratic Party’s black and Hispanic base the most if it had been implemented.
To defeat Trumpism, we only need 10 percent of Republicans to leave their party and join a center-left Biden, which he was elected to and is still at heart. But we may not even be able to get 1 percent of Republicans to shift if far-left Democrats are seen as defining the party’s future.
And so I left my lunch at the President’s with a full stomach but a heavy heart.
