We may disagree with most of what Van Jones says. That’s a given, but the man is more intelligent than this. What the hell was he thinking regarding these remarks about Joe Biden and his presidency? No one asked him to use the defibrillator pads. This presidency is dead. The time of death dates back to that bungled and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago. It’s been downhill since the fall of Kabul. We’ve been dealing with COVID variants, which Biden said he’d lock down if elected. He didn’t. We have high inflation, volatile gas prices, the supply chain crisis, the baby formula circus, and an immigration catastrophe. To top it all off, we’re in an economic recession. So, I get the Manchin-Schumer deal was a brief glint of good news. The package hikes taxes during a recession, but it’s the last stab for congressional Democrats to get a legislative win before the midterms. The problem is this bill comes way too late. The fate of the House is sealed; the GOP will retake it. The Senate could also swing back towards GOP control. Also, this new spending bill could collapse since Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) could torpedo the deal. It’s why it’s somewhat baffling that Jones said Biden’s presidency has been successful, but only if you remove the past six months of craziness (via Fox News):
CNN commentator Van Jones praised President Biden's tenure in office, though with a notable exception.
The media is already hyping the surprise deal on a climate and tax bill that was struck between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., who has long been accused by the progressive base of stalling the Biden agenda.
[...]
"That big sound you hear in the background is a sigh of relief for the Democratic Party, that we actually could be able to deliver on some of this stuff," Jones said to CNN anchor Jim Sciutto on Thursday.
He continued, "Listen, if you just erase the past six months of nutty stuff, it looks like you’ve got a president that can get an infrastructure bill done, get COVID stuff done, get something done for the American people on climate, get something done on CHIPS- that’s a successful presidency, you just have the past six months of nonsense that takes away from it."
It’s been insane since his inauguration, Jones. What’s worse is that the president doesn’t think we’re in a recession when every indicator not cooked up by left-leaning economists or Democratic megadonors suggests that we’re in the thick of it. Like a dementia patient, Biden just thinks everything is great. His people are hard at work redefining what a recession is when it’s clear and the definition immovable. We’ve had two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Biden decided to tighten the noose around his party’s neck ahead of the midterms by ushering in a lousy economy.
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In 2016, Jones was one of the few Democrats to note how the Democratic blue wall in the Rust Belt was hanging on by a thread. Donald Trump shattered that sucker on election night. He’s called the Russian collusion story a nothingburger. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but Jones knows better. For any Democrat out there, there’s next to nothing to gain by defending this president, which means they should do it.
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