Former and potentially future President Donald Trump raised some concerns last week when he referenced former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a primary challenger of his, when he meant to say Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) while talking about January 6. Pelosi herself was asked about and spoke to the matter during her Tuesday night appearance on MSNBC.
Hysterically anti-Trump host Rachel Maddow on the anti-Trump network began the discussion by asking about the mix-up, saying she was "curious" about Pelosi's reaction.
"Well, let me just say, I'm not going to spend too much time on Donald Trump's cognitive disorders," Pelosi started off by offering, as she continued to discuss the dispute about whether Pelosi had allowed for the National Guard to come. "But what I am going to say, and I want to, in friendship, say to Chris [Hayes], he tried to say that Nikki Haley did not allow the national guard to come, but it was Nancy Pelosi. It was nei--nobody. It was Joe--it was Donald Trump," Pelosi added, going on to claim that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) "begged for hours for the National Guard to come."
The 83-year-old Pelosi herself ended up mixing up Trump with President Joe Biden, despite how Biden hadn't even been mentioned yet in the conversation.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes, whom Pelosi had been referring to, could be seen nodding along. There's no horror or surprise on his face in reaction to Pelosi's mix-up. If anything, it's something of a smile in reaction to the former speaker having her senior moment.
"But don't spend so much time on him," Pelosi urged with a wave of her hand. "We don't agonize about him, we organize! And Joe Biden is our nominee, and he's going to be, again, the pres--he and Kamala Harris are going to be president and vice president of the United States! It's now the time, the intensity's arrived! The election year is here," Pelosi said with a smile on her face as she referenced multiple Biden reelection campaign staffers by name.
Nancy Pelosi says she's "not gonna spend too much time on Donald Trump's cognitive disorders," then confuses him with Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/iqIjtrb4Ja
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 24, 2024
While both Trump and Biden won New Hampshire, the latter having to do so as part of a write-in campaign, they still have yet to formally win the nomination, no matter how much Pelosi insists.
Bonchie weighed in at our sister site of RedState, warning that "[t]he next ten months are going to be mind-numbing, with both sides shouting at each other about whose brain is more toasted. As long as Biden is the Democrat nominee, though, he and his supporters are going to lose that argument. Everyone slows down as they get older, but the contrast between Trump and the current president is still very stark."
In addition to Bonchie's point about a "very stark" contrast between Trump and Biden, the polls do show that voters are less concerned with Trump's age and mental capabilities. The same cannot be said about Biden, though, and they've been saying that for months.
Last October, for instance, Monmouth University released a poll showing that while 48 percent of voters believe that Trump "is too old to effectively serve another term as president," while 50 percent do not, 76 percent think that Biden is. That includes 56 percent of the president's fellow Democrats.
The Biden reelection campaign is continuing to try to spin the president's age as a good thing, actually. Last week, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki turned MSNBC host spoke with Campaign Communications Director Michael Tyler and Deputy Campaign Manager Rob Flaherty about the president's age.
Tyler offered that "the American people know Joe Biden's age," and even tried to turn it into a positive since "they also know that with that age comes wisdom, comes experience, comes judgment," which is supposedly "why they elected him in the first place." From there, Tyler also offered that Americans "understand that those qualities stand in stark contrast to everybody else on the other side," particularly as it relates to Donald Trump."
"The American people know Joe Biden's age. They also know that with that age comes wisdom, comes experience... the Dark Brandon stuff works because, yes, it's funny. But also it is based in that truth."
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) January 12, 2024
Tune in Sunday at 12pm for @jrpsaki's visit to Biden campaign headquarters pic.twitter.com/3bh1vl4Xpn
The Biden reelection campaign also addressed the age issue when a question came in during a Wednesday morning press call following the New Hampshire primary from the night before. Tyler similarly offered that Biden has been governing "with the wisdom, the judgment and experience that comes with his age" and that "he's also doing it with the empathy and the decency to complex situations demand," adding "that is why the American people elected him in the first place and that's why they'll reelect him again."
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has gone with the same tactic when confronted with questions about the president's age, as she memorably was last August by CNN's Jake Tapper.
Maybe Pelosi has a point when it comes to her directive on "don't spend so much time on" Trump, at least when it comes to his mental shortcomings.
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