Republicans Can’t Wait to Be Putin’s Special Guest at a Biden Debate That’s Never Happening

Earlier this week, Joe Biden was asked if he considered Vladimir Putin a killer, to which the president answered, “I do.” This was not a controversial statement, given the many people the former KGB agent is suspected of having killed, to say nothing of ones who’ve been poisoned but survived (in addition to Russia’s role in Syria’s civil war and the thousands killed in Ukraine since 2014). Putin apparently didn‘t like this answer, though, and responded like an online troll, challenging Biden to a televised debate and adding that the leader of free world should apparently fly to Russia immediately to take part in this event. “I don’t want to put this off for long,” Putin said. “I want to go the taiga this weekend to relax a little. So we could do it tomorrow or Monday. We are ready at any time convenient for the American side.”

Obviously, this debate was never going to happen for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that world leaders don’t typically—or ever—debate each other on TV and presidents of the United States definitely don’t drop everything, hop on Air Force One, and fly thousands of miles to do so. Reasonable people whose brains haven’t been completely hollowed out understand this. And then there are the relatives, friends, and assorted other allies of Donald Trump, whose takeaway from the last four years is that Vladimir Putin is a great pal of America whose only noncrime was helping the 45th president get elected in 2016 and who tried his darndest to do so the last time around too. They’ve spent the last day weighing in on the matter and, surprise: They’ve put their money on the Kremlin.

“Putin and Biden? It would not end like Rocky IV—I don’t think the American would prevail,” Republican representative Matt Gaetz told Sean Hannity on Thursday.

Hannity, obviously, agreed. “The question is this,” he said. “Why would Vladimir Putin immediately call for a debate with Joe Biden with no time to prepare? What have I been saying? What have some of us—half the American people—been saying?” (Hannity, of course, has been baselessly claiming Biden is in cognitive decline, which Republicans also swore was the case before the presidential debates, and then had to pivot to claiming Biden was taking performance-enhancing drugs.) “It’s getting a little scary,” Hannity said earlier this month. “It’s funny because the media was attacking me for saying that Joe looks weak and he looks frail and he’s struggling cognitively. Well, every day now, pretty much, when he speaks, when he’s allowed to speak, he’s struggling.” In fact, Biden has spoken publicly numerous times since taking office, including a prime-time address.

Meanwhile, the president‘s namesake and arguably dumbest child had this to say:

In fact, Putin wanted Junior’s father in office because he knew just how thoroughly he could manipulate him for reasons that remain unclear (though will perhaps one day be revealed), and is likely worried about what Biden has in store for him. That’s something he never had to be concerned about when Trump was in office, as his favorite little babushka doll would never even dream of crossing him. 

Report: The White House is pretty uncool about weed

According to a report from the Daily Beast, numerous people have been told their ass is grass:

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation. The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal.

In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign. “There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told the Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.”

The Daily Beast notes that rules about prior marijuana use and their impact on security clearance eligibility vary by agency; for example, at the FBI, an applicant cannot have partaken in the previous three years, while at the NSA, it’s just one. But the White House “largely calls its own shots.” For example, Alyssa Mastromonaco, deputy chief of staff for operations in the Obama administration and a self-described “love[r] of the ganj,” was allowed to join the administration (though she says she was “randomly drug-tested pretty much once a month for the first year, and regularly after that.“)

In response to the report, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that “of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy.” (As the Daily Beast notes, Psaki did not indicate how many people had been disqualified for a White House gig before actually starting.) “I find it absurd that, in 2021, marijuana use is still part of a security clearance background check,” Tommy Vietor, an Obama administration veteran, said Thursday. “To me, marijuana use is completely irrelevant when you’re trying to decide whether an individual should be trusted with national security information.”

ICYMI: Rep. Lauren Boebert is still all in on QAnon

The Colorado congresswoman will not sit idly by while Marjorie Taylor Greene gets all the press for being the House’s resident crazy person. Per the Independent:

Boebert has shared a QAnon conspiracy claiming that the GOP will retake Congress following a supposed wave of Democratic resignations and arrests…. The theory, which would see Republicans gain control the House and Senate before the 2022 elections, has been pushed by the right-wing Epoch Times. Ms. Boebert reportedly told her constituents at the event earlier this week that her sources were close to the ex-president.

“And this is my opinion with that information that I have, I believe we will see resignations begin to take place,” Boebert said, adding that she has “very good sources that tell me this is very good information. Is it 100 percent? I don’t know but it’s very good information.” As a reminder, among other things, QAnon believers think Democrats are Satan-worshipping pedophiles who eat children. So, there’s that.

Elsewhere!

Biden Says U.S. Could Double His Vaccine Goal for First 100 Days (Bloomberg)

Fauci says the variant from the U.K. likely accounts for up to 30% of COVID infections in U.S. (CNBC)

How Trump Turned Asians Into a Target (Daily Beast)

Google to invest $7 billion in buildings, add 10,000 jobs this year (NYP)

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago partially closed due to COVID outbreak (AP)

Former lobbyist accuses Rep. Tom Reed, a potential Cuomo challenger, of sexual misconduct (Washington Post)

Behind the Back-Office Blunder That Cost Citigroup $500 Million (Bloomberg)

Inside the pooch palaces of NYC’s top dog influencers (NYP)

— Andrew Cuomo’s Biographer on the Governor’s Brutish History
— How Officials in Trump’s White House Scrambled to Score COVID-19 Vaccinations
— A Private Jet of Rich Trumpers Wanted to “Stop the Steal”
— Donald Trump Is Drowning in Criminal Investigations and Legally Screwed
— The Wave of Anti-Asian Hate Could Last Beyond the Pandemic
— Could Brett Kavanaugh Be Booted From the Supreme Court?
— Leak of Bombshell CBS Investigation Led to Multimillion-Dollar Settlement
— From the Archive: The Day Before Tragedy

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