President Donald Trump took a shot at his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, on Thursday night that visibly fell apart in yet another instance of Trump struggling to paint himself as more mentally capable than Biden.
“I’m watching what they’re doing with Biden where he’s using teleprompters,” Trump told his supporters during a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin.
“‘Move it up, move it up, I can’t see, I can’t see,'” the President continued, mock-quoting Biden.
“He’s shot,” Trump added. “He’s shot.”
Meanwhile, two teleprompters could be seen standing plainly a few feet away:
Trump’s jab falls under one of his top campaign strategies: Smearing his challenger’s mental acuity. He and his campaign team often post videos on social media mocking Biden’s speech as slow and confused, and Trump has insisted that the Democratic candidate is “not all there.” The President also likes to brag about his own “amazing” cognitive ability, like being able to pass a test that required him to remember and repeat the words “person, woman, man, camera, TV” in order.
It’s been recently reported that these theories about Biden’s mental state might also be part of an active Russian disinformation campaign meant to “denigrate” Biden — a campaign that the Trump administration attempted to hide.
But Trump’s favorite point of attack has frequently flopped in the face of his own rambling speeches, including a town hall that saw him refer to the herd immunity health strategy as “herd mentality,” assert that waiters “don’t think masks are good,” and claim that he “up-played” COVID-19 despite him directly admitting he had downplayed it.
