Republicans Respond to Trump Calling President Biden a ‘Crackhead’: “That's Trump Being Trump”
Republican are giving mixed responses to Former President Donald Trump's new claim against President Joe Biden. News recently broke that cocaine was discovered in a visitor-trafficked area of the White House. Since then, Trump has made the claim that Biden has used or is currently using cocaine. This is despite no evidence supporting that Biden, who has held federal office almost continuously since 1973, has engaged in the habit.
Furthermore, Trump didn't just make the claim once. He repeated it at least four times on his social media platform Truth Social and at least once in an interview. “We can’t have a president who’s on cocaine when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons and everything else,” Trump claimed in a recent interview with right-wing commentator, Wayne Allen Root.
Always a conspiracy theory. Trump makes baseless claim they “bump” President Biden up with cocaine before a speech or interview. (Video: Real America’s Voice) pic.twitter.com/5iJEW86dow
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) July 14, 2023
When asked about Trump's outrageous accusation that Biden had used or is using cocaine, Republicans on Capitol Hill answered with bewilderment and resignation, reports HuffPost. None, however, ventured to declare that Trump was dishonest.
Representative Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told HuffPost, “Who knows? I don’t know. That’s Trump being Trump." Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) said Trump was kidding in his social media posts and that interpreting “tone” from just text can be difficult. Senator Jim Lankford (R-Okla.) said, “Ask him. Ask President Trump on his stuff.”
Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reverted to a statement he frequently used during Trump's administration, when he was on Twitter and Senate Republicans were questioning him about various outrageous things he had tweeted. Scott said, “I haven’t seen it. I don’t have any knowledge of it.” Scott also declined to comment on the propriety of a major party presidential contender explicitly accusing a sitting president of drug use. Similarly, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “I don’t have anything to say about that or any knowledge.”
The Secret Service stated it was impossible to identify the perpetrator due to a lack of tangible evidence and ended the inquiry last week, noted NBC News. Despite the lack of evidence, however, Trump has frequently attempted to link the cocaine to President Biden and his son Hunter Biden in his posts. “It is Crooked Joe and his wonderful son, Hunter? Release the findings, and release the tapes. We can’t have a crackhead in charge of our nuclear arsenal!!!” he said in one post.
“If they don’t release information, it means they destroyed the tapes & the cocaine was for use by Hunter, & probably Crooked Joe, in order to give this total disaster of a President a little life and energy!” Trump said in another.
Many Representatives have voiced concern over how callously Trump makes allegations like these. Representative Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said, “No. 1, we know that’s not Joe Biden’s cocaine. The average person with any bit of sense knows that." Referencing another of Trump’s derisive nicknames for Biden, Frost said, "Pick a message, right? Is it Sleepy Joe or is it Joe doing cocaine in the Oval? Which is it? Because those don’t go together."
References:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-biden-crackhead_n_64b5b6c1e4b09a3b488e6938
