When Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo asked Rep. Greg Murphy (R.N.C.) about the just-announced presidential debate last month, he prefaced the question strangely.
“So let me ask you to put on your doctor’s hat for a second, given the group of (GOP) doctors that you lead,” Bartiromo began. He finally asked Murphy, “How do these debates play out from your perspective?”
What does being a doctor have to do with hindering debate? Bartiromo did not invoke the age of the candidates or similar issues.
However, Murphy quickly followed suit and launched an unfounded suggestion that Biden could take something to improve your performance. He said Biden “must have been fired up” during his State of the Union address in March: “He was given something.” Murphy did not provide evidence but said he could provide proof of his claim about Bartiromo “out of line.”
Just over 40 days later, these tests have yet to see the light of day. But Donald Trump – with the help of media allies like Bartiromo and allies in Congress that now include, surprisingly, two more doctors – continues to float the theory in an effort to spin it ahead of Thursday’s debate in case it doesn’t go so well for him.
The episode has all the characteristics of Trump. No evidence beyond the speculative and highly circumstantial has been provided, and early efforts to float the theory were largely ignored. But through the force of repetition and the willingness to push virtually anything for the cause without regard to actual evidence, the theory has become mainstream for large swaths of the Republican base to adopt.
While some conspiracy theorists floated the idea that Biden’s performance at the State of the Union was improved as self-evident, it took weeks before this idea emerged beyond the whispers and the occasional casual comment.
KeynoteUSA host Jesse Watters commented after Biden’s powerful March 7 speech: “I’m not a doctor, but they’re giving him something.” He added that “something has been added to the mix” and that Biden should “urinate in a cup.”
Nearly a month later, Trump suggested that Biden had used cocaine found in his White House once last year, called him “higher than a kite” and pushed for a drug test before the debate. Trump said Biden “was very high.”
But it wasn’t until another month (after the first debate was announced on May 15) that the theory really began to take hold, starting with Murphy’s interview. Trump began quoting him repeatedly, culminating in his Saturday comment about Biden getting “shot in the butt” shortly before the debate. “I say he’ll come out in high spirits, right?” Trump added at a rally in Philadelphia.
“Jacked up” has become shorthand for this theory. But Fox hosts and Republican lawmakers have expressed it in various ways, demonstrating apparent concern about being too harsh on the baseless claim that Biden has or will use drugs.
In addition to Murphy borrowing the phrase, KeynoteUSA host Sean Hannity has uttered “jacked up” more than a dozen times this month. Hannity often suggests that perhaps Biden was or will be consuming too much caffeine (he repeatedly invokes the energy drink Red Bull) while inviting viewers to consider alternative theories. Last week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) connected the dots, calling Biden “propped up by drugs.”
Bartiromo, who has an especially conspiratorial track record, has been the most outspoken in promoting this allegation. After professing a keen interest in Murphy’s still-unsubstantiated claims (“That’s really compelling,” he told her last month), on Sunday he welcomed another member of the GOP Doctors Caucus, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), to his show for a more extended discussion. Jackson even discussed the various medications Biden might be taking (experts say none really fit the bill) and called it “a matter of national security.”
(It’s worth noting, in light of that last comment, that Jackson was a White House doctor under Trump and Barack Obama. An inspector general report earlier this year noted “systemic problems” with the way the dispensed prescription medications at the White House Medical Unit, with many of these problems attributed to Jackson. He has denied wrongdoing and has said his decisions were approved by his lawyers).
Bartiromo on Tuesday played a clip of Jackson’s remarks to Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), in which Burlison posited that advisers would “lift (Biden) up over Mountain Dew or whatever.”
Following Murphy and Jackson, ophthalmologist Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) on Monday made three members of the Republican doctors’ caucus, about one sixth of the caucus – to push this theory. He said his colleagues had raised the possibility that Biden was taking Ritalin or steroids and told Fox Business that “we anticipate that for this first debate, he will take something, and the press response has been to cover it up.”
That’s certainly one way to look at it. Another is that responsible journalists don’t accuse people of drug use simply on the basis of suspicion, and there is still no real evidence, despite promises Miller-Meeks’ Republican Doctors Group colleague made six weeks ago.
Just as there is still no evidence four years after Trump made the decision, Same claim against Biden in 2020. Just as there is still no evidence eight years after he said The same goes for Hillary Clinton..
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