As June ended and July began, wow! Did the temperature—the political temperature—shoot up! On June 27th, a nation watched the earliest presidential debate ever. Epic, for all the wrong reasons. Four days later, July 1st, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidential immunity covered just about anything coming out of the Oval Office.
To refresh. The nation saw two elderly men—one 81, the other 78—squaring off for the right to be our next President. In one of the most alarming debate performances ever, President Joe Biden appeared, at best, shaky. Actually, worse.
Biden’s voice rose barely above a whisper. At times, he seemed lost, offering incomplete or disjointed answers, was either unwilling or unable to dispute the fusillade of half-truths and outright lies coming from Donald Trump who was operating at full bluster.
Questions, none entirely new and only minutes into the debate about Biden’s ability to lead immediately hit the internet. What was wrong? Was he sick? Medicated? Or had age simply caught up with him. Very simply, it was bad.
Democrats watched in agony. Republicans, minus those who’d already fled Trump, reveled. Trump, despite his inability to answer truthfully or even answer at all—in no small part thanks to CNN and rules that included no challenges to false answers—seized the moment.
Over the course of the 90-minute debate or debacle, various media fact checkers counted as many as 50 lies, half-truths or distorted versions or ‘Trump truths’, in answering questions.
A sampling: Trump said he offered 10,000 National Guard troops on January 6th for Capitol security. He didn’t. He stated Democrats supported abortion “in the eighth, ninth month and even after birth.” All untrue. He lied about his sexual encounter with adult actor Stormy Daniels. A New York jury heard Daniels, under oath, admit otherwise. Without fact checking, CNN gave Trump an ‘all-day pass’ on truth.
There was no sugar coating in debate post-mortems. Network and cable talking heads, almost universally, panned Biden’s performance, some with a palpable degree of pity. Biden and Democrats’ chances of winning in November, they said, slipped, perhaps by a lot.
Democrats stumbled in Biden’s defense. Some attributed his televised faceplant to a cold or medication. Maybe, others said, it was over-coaching or simply fatigue. Other reviews—including by Democratic partisans—called for Biden to step aside. But loyalists said, ‘hit the pause button.’
“I would advise him with what my wife told me in ’91,” said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. “One thing is for sure,” she told him, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.”
In 1991, in his first run for Mayor, Webb trailed badly in the polls. Knowing he had to do something, Webb and his team launched what has been called, the ‘Webb Miracle.’ Donning his now famous sneakers, Webb hit the streets and walked nearly every Denver zipcode. He won and went on to serve three full terms as the city’s chief executive.
Still, the former Mayor conceded that Biden, who remains a friend, did not have his best moment. “I watched. It was awful. He didn’t seem like himself,” said Webb. But dropping out, the mayor quickly added, should not be an option, at least a first option. A lot can happen between now and November, said the politically savvy Webb. Donald Trump, he pointed out, is prone to his own political ‘gaffery,’ political missteps and something else with the potential to land hatd, perceived racism.
“We remember his tax cut to the wealthy,” Webb said. He also itemized a list of Trump’s borderline or even unfiltered racist attacks on Black people. Trump, he said, has made former CNN anchor Don Lemon a frequent target. Lemon is African American.
Trump once called Lemon “the dumbest man on TV.” And following a Lemon interview with NBA legend LeBron James, Trump said Lemon “made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy.”
Biden’s fate, at the moment, “depends on what tran- spires between now and November. If Biden and Democrats “work their tails off,” Biden should be fine, predicted Webb. “Joe Biden has given his whole life to this country. As long as Joe Biden is in, I’m with the President,” he pledged.
But even with ‘end of June’ aftershocks, July arrived with a ‘hold my beer’ explosion. The Supreme Court ruled on presidential immunity. With debate aftershocks still trembling, the Supreme Court finally ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for acts relating to basic executive powers while in office. The historic ruling now sends Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s election interference case against Trump back to the lower courts to determine whether the ex-president’s conduct was official or unofficial.
Remanding the case back to federal Judge Tanya Chutkan will almost certainly further delay Trump’s Washington trial, originally scheduled for last March. Also, last Friday Trump’s attorneys filed for “a stay of pending resolution” in his Florida case where he’s accused of steal- ing classified documents.
The high court’s 6-3 ruling, while not surprising to Court watchers, said University of Denver’s Sturm School of Law professor Ian Farrell, is baffling. “The way (Chief Justice) John Roberts describes presidential power,” said Farrell, “any conversations Trump would have with the Department of Justice would give absolute immunity,” or at least the presumption of immunity to Trump.
“If the President gives orders to members of the mili- tary,” Farrell said citing Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, “it would be completely within his official acts and therefore cannot be prosecuted.” The Court’s ruling, he said, would cloak the President from almost every dubious act or order, including bribery, ordering the death of a political rival, even ordering a nuclear attack. One of Trump’s most recent declarations was aimed at former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a vocal critic of the ex-president and co-chair of the January 6th Committee. Trump recently posted, “Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” and should be tried by a military tribunal. Cheney posted on “X” her response to Trump’s suggestion. “Donald—this is the type of thing that demonstrates yet again that you are not a stable adult—and are not fit for office.”
The penalty for treason, as spelled out in U.S. law, is imprisonment or death. The very suggestion coming from a presidential candidate, said Farrell, is “astonishing.”
