A forthcoming book by a prominent reporter for the Wall Street Journal promises to be a bombshell judging by at least one excerpt published [1] Monday in Vanity Fair.
The excerpt describes a time when former President Donald Trump interrupted a policy meeting in the Oval Office in early 2020 to complain about his poor showing in the polls and attack then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden, according to journalist Michael Bender’s upcoming book [2] Frankly We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.
“How am I losing in the polls to a mental r****d?” Trump demanded in the middle of the meeting, per the excerpt.
The book digs deeper into the causes that spurred Trump’s election loss and led up to last January’s riot at the Capitol. Bender conducted extensive reporting on the insurrection and met with Trump on at least two occasions at his Mar-a-Lago resort while writing the book which is scheduled for publication in August, Business Insider [3] reports.
Trump made the slur during what was surely a desperate time for him because Biden was definitely outpacing him in national polls. At least that’s what the averages compiled by Five Thirty-Eight [4] and Real Clear Politics [5] showed at the time.
Trump and his Republican cronies continually attacked Biden’s mental acuity, attempting to portray him as mentally unfit to become president. This even includes the Trump campaign [6] which posted an ad that painted Biden as senile.
This is pretty hilarious when you consider Trump’s problems [7] with his [8] so-called “mental acuity.” Trump’s speeches were often word salads but somehow these people saw fit to criticize Biden?
Eventually, the constant criticism led Biden to open up about the struggles he faced growing up with a stutter. Despite this, the Trump team continued the harangue and by August Trump had challenged [9] Biden to take a cognitive test. Which he firmly rejected.
“Why the hell would I take a test?” he told a reporter at the time.
So perhaps it’s fitting that a poll conducted by Insider last February found [10] that Biden, who’s now 78, is mentally fit for the job. This is another instance where Trump tried to light a fire and got burned, baby, burned. Pretty durned funny.