JD Vance: "we really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job."

[karynnj]

29. Let's take that comment to the only logical conclusion

Biden is out of office this it is not relevant in his case. The logical conclusion is that the country needs to always assess the competence of the existing President. Vance is clearly smart enough to understand this inference ... and he has a vested interest here.

The question is does Trump remember that Vance switched between being one of the strongest name calling critics to a Trump follower pretty much as soon as Thiel pushed him for VP. Remember that during Trump's first term there were serious stories of cabinet members considering the 25th amendment. I think we should call this a veiled suggestion that when a President seems incapable they should be removed.

I noticed in DU comments the majority of responses go directly there. I can't see twitter anymore because I deleted my rarely used account. I would imagine Trump would be furious if that is a common response beyond DU.

As to Biden, I would refer to the SOTU and the very detailed foreign policy press conference after the disastrous debate. I wonder if any neuropsychologist as looked at either of these extended events to assess his cognition?

While it is clear that he aged a lot as President and it showed physically though he still was riding bikes etc. I suspect that what Democrats are acknowledging is that his age and appearance created an image of a frail elder statesman ... In a country that always looks for vigor. I suspect that the terribleness of the debate was a factor of both his being sick and having to face a bully viciously spewing lies as facts in every sentence. Having been protected from direct exposure to that for three years likely made him feel like he was being beaten up. I do wonder if his team had someone accurately play Trump in practice. In hindsight, a prepared answer saying there was not time to counter the many lies in Trump's answer though we will issue a fact check, but my answer to the question is....

It may have been that he was competent to BE President, but not capable of running for President ... and given the aging in the first term, an insightful honest deeply personal analysis might have concluded that it would be questionable if he could be President for four more years.

The fact is that had Harris won, this would not be a huge issue. None of the accusations I have read suggest there was any foreign or domestic issue that was handled badly because he was not able.