Donald Trump’s Campaign Press Secretary Went on a Weird, Despicable Tangent About Joe Biden’s Grandkids

I’m often critical of Joe Biden because his entire presidential campaign seems to be less an argument for electing him specifically than it is anti-Donald Trump in general. And while I support pretty much everything anti-Trump, this is coming off of a primary election when a lot of us had candidates we were genuinely passionate about. So Biden’s tepid vagueness is still a bit of a disappointment.

That said, the Trump campaign has fallen into similar rhetoric when it comes to talking about Biden. After bungling the coronavirus response and tanking the economy, Trump doesn’t have much of a case for his reelection (except racism and he’s leaning into that extra hard these days) so he and his campaign have taken to making petty attacks on Biden instead of trying for substantive arguments.

This was never more clear than in a Fox News interview with Trump’s campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley. Gidley was asked about a New York Times article that urged Joe Biden to put conditions on any upcoming presidential debates–namely that Trump have to release his tax returns and that he agree to real-time fact-checking. Neither of those things are likely to happen, but they’re good ideas.

Gidley was asked to weigh in on the suggestions. His answer got weird fast.

Gidley got so far off-topic that Fox News anchor Sandra Smith had to reign him in. He starts by almost addressing the subject at hand, saying that Biden won’t do well in a debate because he needs to read from prepared documents, before making the wild claim: “You’re going to hear interesting comments from Biden about how children love his leg hair and how he coaxed children on his porch with ice cream during quarantines.”

What makes this even worse is that Gidley is trying to make it sound like Biden was being inappropriate by twisting a story he told about how much he misses hugging his own grandchildren during the coronavirus pandemic.

Remember that this isn’t just some random Trump supporter–Gidley is his reelection campaign’s national press secretary, essentially making this completely despicable and unhinged tangent an at least somewhat official campaign position.

(image: screencap)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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