Right at the top, allow me to dispense with the Trump whataboutism that is sure to follow. Yes, since the ride down the escalator in Midtown Manhattan on June 15th, 2015, Donald Trump has been the butt of a whole bunch of jokes, both here in the United States and internationally as well. And the former and possibly future President generated that mockery in a fairly evenly-distributed fashion between allies and enemies of the United States.
I will also grant the point to the whataboutism crowd that Donald Trump certainly deserves a lot of the mocking and scorn he's received. Not all of it, mind you, but a lot of the mocking has been derived from both the physical mannerisms of Trump as well as his speech pattern, but also from his behavior online, in press conferences, and at rallies. In short, if you're a comedian or a political writer that loves satirical writing, there have rarely been characters on the national scene more ripe to produce comedic material than Donald John Trump.
Here's the difference between the mockery of Trump and the growing mockery of Joe Biden. Biden campaigned on being the 'return to normal' guy. He was supposed to restore America on the world stage to being a serious and respected player again. Remember, Biden was the one at his first G7 as president in the summer of 2021 that allegedly told all those other world leaders, including who he believed to be the Late Helmut Kohl and the even Later Francois Mitterand, "We're back." This was supposed to be a period of time where the United States unites the world behind whatever it was that Biden was selling, which mostly consisted of American weakness, appeasement, and stepping back from a global leadership position. Where Trump went in as the proverbial bull in a china shop in 2017, Biden was supposed to restore order and be ordinary Joe president.
The President has often tried to claim during a speech or staged White House event that he accomplished that mission, that he restored our relationships internationally. I think we're starting to see that the great unification has been international mocking and laughter, amazement that someone this addled is running the most powerful country in the world, and that the citizens of this country are actually considering him for a second term in office.
Rita Panahi is one of the prime time presenters of Sky News Australia, and has been a long-time critic of the President. Here's just her latest bit of commentary at Biden's expense.
Michael Deacon is a columnist with the London Telegraph, and after the latest gaffe by the President, he writes that it may be too late for Biden and the Democrats. What gaffe, you ask? You see, that's just the point with Joe Biden. There are so many, sometimes multiples in same day, that you need a scorecard to keep track of them all. But in Deacon's column, he was referring to the President of the United States meeting with the widow of Russian dissenter Alexsei Navalny, Yulia. Or as Biden calls her, Yolanda.
From Deacon's column:
Where he got the name Yolanda from, no one can say for certain – but I have my strong suspicions. The most famous Yolanda in the US is Yolanda Hadid, a star of the popular reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It is unknown whether the President is a regular viewer, but the two women do bear a striking resemblance: blonde, glamorous, statuesque. I just hope he didn’t get them muddled up during the meeting itself. “Hey, Yolanda! Love the show. How’s it going in Beverly Hills? You ever hang out with Paris Hilton?”
Even if not, the blunder is pretty remarkable. He’d managed to forget a woman’s name mere minutes after coming out of a meeting with her.
This is the third time so far this month that Mr Biden has got a name wrong on camera. First he referred to President Macron of France as “Mitterrand from Germany” (two mistakes in three words). President Mitterrand left office in 1995, and died the following year.
Next, Mr Biden referred to Angela Merkel as “Helmut Kohl” – somehow managing to get not just her name wrong, but her biological sex. Chancellor Kohl left office in 1998, and died in 2017.
The Saudis, rarely considered either funny or overtly political in their humor, couldn't resist mocking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They've done so a few times, most recently this clip from March of last year.
If that weren't bad enough, the Italians have gotten into the act of mocking Joe Biden. On Nove Canale 9, a station owned by the Warner/Discovery media group, in fact, aired this skit over the weekend.
In case you couldn't make out what Italian Joe Biden was saying, here's just one line. "I said to the president of Israel, Michael Jordan, when he went to the Moon, he was shot from Dallas." Brutal stuff. And they weren't done.
You'd think this was over the top, except out in California last week, there actually was a Secret Service agent stationed at the bottom of the little flight of stairs to catch the President if and when he slipped and fell backwards.
Dr. Jill Biden gave a speech late last week and tried her hand at comedy. Needless to say, it didn't go well.
With apologies to Mel Brooks, the 'I didn't get a harrumph out of that guy' vibe was a lot funnier when Brooks' Gov. William J. Le Petomane said it in Blazing Saddles.
Meanwhile, among domestic "comedians", with comedians definitely being in air quotes these days when referring to the current crop of late night regime media hosts, there's still bubble wrap around Joe Biden. In fact, NBC's Seth Meyers is going to get a rare Joe Biden interview this week not to make fun of him, but to prop him up.
You'd almost think there was nothing recent about which to poke the President - like this, perhaps.
He's got the name of the guy in the picture behind him, Abraham Lincoln, on the card in his hand. He's got the guy's quote typed in large font on the same cue card in his hand from which he's trying to read. It's right there. It's from Lincoln's First Inaugural, and as is the case with much of Lincoln, it's beautiful rhetoric.
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
He couldn't deliver the quote. There wasn't even a remote chance he could. What's truly funny about this particular incident is that someone in the White House believed it was possible for Biden to deliver this line at the black tie dinner.
Last week on a Fox News town hall with Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump was asked if he would showcase his sense of humor on the campaign trail as the year progressed. Trump played it straight, and indicated that the country is in such a mess right now here and abroad, that there might be time for jokes later, but the times were too serious, the problems were too great, and the country needs saving, so he would shy away from the stand-up stuff. That lasted less than a week. Here's the former President in South Carolina Saturday night.
It's hard not to mock Biden. When things are going this badly, you have to either laugh or cry. I'll start the crying part if Biden somehow gets a second term.
