Amidst all the concern about President Joe Biden being 81, director Rob Reiner thinks he’s still a better choice in the 2024 race for the White House than his GOP rival Donald Trump, who is 77.
“Okay. Here’s the truth. Biden is old. But he is a decent moral person who is incredibly effective at governing. Trump is old. But he’s a pathologically lying criminal who is incapable of governing and will destroy American Democracy,” Reiner tweeted on Tuesday.
Jon Stewart in his return to “The Daily Show” Monday night was less enthusiastic about backing Biden, given his age: “These two candidates, they are both are similarly challenged and it is not crazy to think that the oldest people in the history of the country to ever run for president might have some of these challenges,” he said.
Articles about Biden’s ability to govern, such as Time magazine’s “Why Biden’s Age Has Become a Bigger Deal Than Trump’s” and a similar New York Times editorial, abounded after special counsel Robert Hur described the sitting president as an “elderly man with a poor memory” in a report that fully exonerated Biden of criminal wrongdoing — and didn’t base the memory assessment on anything real.
Trump, meanwhile, made headlines for essentially giving Vladimir Putin his hypothetical blessing to attack NATO countries. Trump made the remark during a Saturday rally in South Carolina, saying that an unnamed leader of a “large” NATO nation once asked him if the US would defend its allies if they were behind in payments to the organization (which by the way is not remotely how the organization works). Trump said no, and that in this abstract example, he’d encourage the aggressor to “do whatever the hell they want … you gotta pay your bills.”
Biden condemned Trump’s statement, which he called “a green light for more war and violence,” saying it was “appalling and dangerous.”
Not surprisingly, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also blasted Trump, saying, “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.”
On Monday night, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld focused on the “you gotta pay your bills” part of the speech. “When Trump says America should get paid, the media hears Russia should invade.The media may have found a new Russia hoax.
Reiner’s many films include “Misery,” “Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and “The American President,” which starred Michael Douglas as a liberal Democrat POTUS.
