Proof that former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney buried evidence that President Donald Trump asked for the National Guard to keep order on January 6 (or “July the 6th, as President Joe Biden calls it), has come to light, while The Big Guy plans to go for the jugular. It’s T-minus 238 days until Election 2024.

Fallout From the State of the Union Address

We don’t know what kind of meds Biden was taking before he gave his State of the Union address last week, but he might need some Advil this morning after spending the weekend tripping all over himself and falling flat on his face — rhetorically, anyway.

Two days after referring to Laken Riley’s killer as an “illegal immigrant,” and one day after refusing to apologize for it, Biden spun 180 degrees and raced to MSNBC to make amends. Unfortunately, he blew past a stop sign and rolled right into declaring that illegal immigrants “built this country.” (We talk more about Joe’s cascade of errors in this morning’s Brew.)

But the really bad news is that blew Laken Riley’s during his State of the Union address, calling her “Lincoln.” The worse news? For a speech that was supposed to reignite Biden’s campaign, it fell relatively flat.

According to the Washington Post, 65 percent of viewers had a favorable impression of the speech. That sounds good, WaPo says, until you realize that:

The 65 percent who had a positive view of the speech was actually lower than any such speech CNN has polled in the past quarter-century. And the 35 percent who offered a ‘very’ positive review was effectively tied with Biden’s speech last year (34 percent) for the lowest on record. The next lowest were Biden’s 2022 speech and George W. Bush’s 2007 speech, which each earned ‘very’ positive marks from 41 percent of viewers.

So Biden is responsible for the three lowest-rated SOTU addresses in a quarter century? That’s quite a trifecta.

Keep in mind even that the 65 percent responded to the poll before all the weekend kerfuffle over Biden messing up Laken Riley’s name and the frenzy over his use of the word “illegal.” What has been the lingering effect of the speech?

July the 6th, A Day That Will Live in Infamy

Traditionally, after delivering the State of the Union address, a president hits the road to help keep the momentum from it going. However, Biden has slammed into his own tongue. On Thursday night, he said January 6 “posed the greatest danger the nation has seen since the Civil War.” By Friday, he’d forgotten the date.

He called it “July the Sixth.”

Ah yes the “attack on the Capitol” on “July the 6th” was so important and memorable that I will never forget that date.

Right up there will Pearl Harbor and 9/11:

pic.twitter.com/pWMTwrNClQ

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) March 9, 2024

The fight for democracy is not over. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Tell me again, Joe Scarborough, how Joe Biden right now is “the best Biden ever.”

J6 Cover-Up Exposed: Liz Cheney Buried Evidence Vindicating Trump

Biden blowing the date of what he calls the most dangerous event to come to America “since the Civil War” wasn’t the most shocking J6-connected news Friday. Turns out former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and the J6 Committee buried evidence confirming that Donald Trump suggested ten thousand National Guard troops be assigned to protect the Capitol Building that day. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway broke the stunning news. Not only did Cheney bury the transcript of Trump Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato detailing requests from both Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to protect the Capitol; she and the J6 Committee insisted there was “no evidence” such requests were ever made.

This is a big deal because the mainstream messaging around J6, which continues to this day, is that “Trump is an insurrectionist.” That he created the chaos that day in order to overturn the 2020 election. Biden’s entire 2024 campaign centers on this “insurrectionist” narrative and the “threat to democracy” Trump allegedly poses. He brought it up in the first thirty seconds of the State of the Union speech. Yet, here we have further proof that Trump wanted to protect the Capitol, but was rebuffed. And Liz Cheney and the J6 Committee lied about that fact.

If they were telling the truth, that would make Donald Trump the only insurrectionist in human history to try to bring in an army to stop his own insurrection. “Hey, First National. Mind if I send over a squad of police officers to your bank? My gang are and I are fixing to rob the place. But don’t worry. We won’t be armed.”

Will the Pugilist Joe Biden “Going for the Jugular” Against Trump Work?

MSNBC”s Nicole Wallace celebrated the State of the Union address as a “punch in the face” to all Republicans. Axios reported the Biden campaign’s new strategy is to “go for Trump’s jugular.” Biden is telling friends he thinks that if he mercilessly digs at Trump, Trump will eventually snap and “go haywire in public.” (You mean, he’ll yell at America for sixty-six minutes in prime time? Maybe even call half of them Nazis?)

A couple of points. First, if Trump is still keeping his sense of humor after all the indictments against him orchestrated by Biden’s Department of Justice, why would a few insults from a guy who needs cue cards to say “Hello” will make him go haywire? Like a construction guy from Queens can’t handle the heat from a politician from Delaware?

That strategy will inevitably backfire because Donald Trump has one Achilles heel: his personality. He’s the mean one. Orange Man Bad. A large swath of swing voters love his policies, but don’t like his insults. If Joe Biden — long branded the nice, regular Joe from Scranton — goes nasty, he wrecks the one advantage he has. It’ll be such a gift that Trump will have to declare it on his taxes.

If Donald Trump is the “nice” one in Election 2024, he’ll win in a landslide.

In reality, Biden is nastier, meaner, more volatile, more coldly calculating than Trump has ever been. For instance, Biden just yelled at us all that Americans who don’t support him are equal to the Third Reich. He also just dropped a campaign ad juxtaposing Trump with the KKK. (He is apparently immune to the irony that while Trump was hanging with the likes of Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and rebuilding urban New York, Biden was creating a record of racism so extensive that his own running mate called him out on it.)

If Biden keeps “going for the jugular” and goading Trump with all sorts of slurs and slaps, Trump just has to look into the camera, spread his arms and say, “What’s with this guy?” A bemused Trump wallops a bitter Biden.

Where will Nicole Wallace be then?

Biden, go back to your original branding. Trump, since Biden won’t take my advice, turn the other cheek and welcome with open arms those who will vote for the more personable candidate.

Biden Hedges on Debate With Trump

Trump says he will debate Biden “anytime, anyplace, anywhere.” Biden says that whether he’ll debate Trump “depends on his behavior.” We can take that to mean, “No, I won’t debate him if I can avoid it.”

Notice what isn’t in Biden’s answer about “behavior”: any sense of the notion that that he has an obligation to the American people to stand before them with his opponent about why his policies and agenda are better for us than Trump’s.

Another sign that the chances of Biden debating Trump are slim at this point: Kamala Harris wouldn’t commit to a debate with whoever Trump chooses as a running mate, either, even though there’s an excellent chance that, due to their ages, either of the men seeking to occupy the Oval Office may not last until 2028.

If Biden won’t (or more likely can’t) debate his opponent, then Harris won’t be allowed to do so. If she’s out there, but he isn’t, that makes him look bad and signals she’s set to replace him, which guarantees an election loss.

Will the pressure to debate reach a tipping point and force the Democrats onto a two-podium stage? We’ll see.

 

Al Perrotta is managing editor of The Stream, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.