Everyone is talking about Joe Biden’s age - not his alleged corruption.
This is genius.
Following the release of the Hur Report, everyone should have been talking about the abject negligence of what Biden had done in removing and keeping classified documents.
And the fact that his son, Hunter, may have had access to those same documents for his alleged influence peddling.
But there was seemingly no talking about that.
Instead, what should have been extensively talked about are Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive issues.
Worrisome issues indeed, but not as serious as the purported criminal ones.
The truth is, that as vice president, Joe Biden may very have violated the same laws that his two-tiered Department of Justice has repeatedly pushed to indict former President Trump.
Joe Biden gets a pass from the DOJ, while the opponent, former President Trump is facing multiple criminal prosecutions and trials.
This represents a clear double-standard of justice and should be the total focus of all media and voter discussions today.
It’s not. Instead, it cuts to Joe Biden’s age issues?!
Why is Joe Biden getting off scot-free for apparent less than honorable transactions, while serving in public office?
Why is Donald Trump is headed back to court when Biden doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist?
In October of 2020, the night before the second presidential debate, President Trump called to ask us if he should make the Hunter Biden laptop scandal a big issue in the debate.
We responded — "Absolutely!"
We had just gotten back a battleground states poll which asked what the voters "liked least" about Joe Biden.
If they were voting for Biden, they responded "his age/too old."
If they were voting for President Trump, they said "corruption."
Exposing the Biden family less than savory practices could have delivered the election to Trump and the Republicans in 2020.
But Big Media wouldn’t allow it.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, held a press conference before the debate and tried to bring the issue up.
Today we all know how the liberal, pro-Biden media and Big Tech censored the free press like the New York Post, Twitter (now X) and other social media. All in an effort to bury Biden's baggage.
It was Russian disinformation, they said.
Now on (at the time of this writing) the eve of Super Bowl weekend, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Hur issues a report which says Vice President Biden failed to properly protect highly sensitive classified information.
This information apparently could have been important to Biden family clients from China, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries — who reportedly paid tens of millions to the Bidens.
However, Biden Justice Department Counsel Hur decided not to prosecute President Biden because, "Mr. Biden would present himself to a jury, . . . as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Hur found that Joe Biden "willfully retained" and "disclosed classified documents," which you do not have to be a lawyer to know is beyond highly suspect.
Cleverly Joe Biden called a rare prime time television press conference, not to defend his innocence against the Hur reports of corruption, but to disprove charges that he’s too old or mentally unfit.
This could be the greatest political diversion of all time.
Our mentor was the late Arthur Finkelstein, a political strategist who had worked for Richard M. Nixon.
One of Finkelstein’s strategic rules when faced with scandal was "substitute, divert and counter."
At a time when the U.S. House Republican majority has an ongoing impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, the president is exonerated by his own Justice Department because of his age --- not his innocence.
Here's the only wrinkle for this diversion.
Public opinion has not been easily fooled and voters are still against him.
Our most recent national poll of 1,000 likely voters (+/-3.1% at the 95% confidence interval), was completed between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31, 2024.
Very relevant results from our poll are:
- President Trump is beating Joe Biden 47% to 43%.
- The nomination battle for President Trump is over. Although Nikki Haley remains someplace between denial and anger, President Trump leads Haley among national Republican primary voters 81% to 19%.
- Also, for the Democrats it doesn’t get better if Biden steps aside. President Trump beats Kamala Harris 50% to 42%.
The majority sees right through President Biden’s cover up of his family’s alleged malfeasance and political persecutions of President Trump.
- 69% of all voters say that politics played a role in the indictments against President Trump.
- 57% of all voters say that President Biden played a role in the indictments against President Trump.
- 51% to 34% voters think these investigations and indictments by the Biden Justice Department are being done simply to stop Donald Trump from running for president again.
- 54% to 34% of all voters agree that there is a double standard and bias at Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, the FBI and the IRS, where they continue to target Republicans like Donald Trump, but these same groups go easy and give sweetheart deals to Joe Biden and his family.
- 56% to 36% of all voters agree that Joe Biden’s Justice Department should stop targeting Donald Trump and interfering with the upcoming presidential election and Biden should let the voters decide who the next president should be.
If we really want to defeat Joe Biden in November, we should focus less on Biden being an "old fool" and more on Biden being a "malleable old fool."
National-January-Presentation-RELEASE-2-1-24.pdf (mclaughlinonline.com)
John McLaughlin has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for over 40 years. Jim McLaughlin is a nationally recognized public opinion expert, strategic consultant and political strategist who has helped to elect a U.S. president, prime ministers, a Senate majority leader, and a speaker of the House. Read John and Jim McLaughlin's Reports — More Here