Rep Jim Banks: If He Can’t Run Again, He Shouldn’t Be President

Tony Katz:

Congressman Jim Banks joins us right now of the Indiana Third District, Republican candidate for Senate in the state of Indiana. There’s a lot happening. Of course, you’ve got Kim Cheatle, the Secret Service director, in front of House Oversight. There is a Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is speaking in the coming days in front of a joint session. They were supposed to be a meeting when Netanyahu and Biden today got pushed to tomorrow. But First things first, Sir, where were you when you heard that Joe Biden was dropping out of the race and your thoughts?

Rep Jim Banks:

Yeah, I was home yesterday, a typical Sunday and. You know, we sort all of the talk about her, Jim. I heard Jim Clyburn on the Sunday shows and he was sort of, you know, I, I found him to be a bellwether and he was kind of. Surprisingly doubling down on supporting Biden. So, you kind of read the tea leaves and it was hard to tell what would happen. And then out of the blue, don’t know if it was out of the blue, but Joe Biden announces that he’s not running again. So, I suppose in hindsight’s not, this is not surprising. It was obviously in the works for a while. Some reports that the so-called presidential historian John Meacham was writing. Biden’s speech and his letter forum, so I suppose this was probably in the works. They waited till after the convention to try to blunt some of the Trump momentum and that’s why he made his announcement yesterday.

Tony Katz:

The announcement came via social media. No actual speech given, no presentation to the American people. We’re told that even the cabinet was not connected to Biden. It was the chief of staff, Jeff Zients, who reached out to them. Staffers were made aware on social media. They were not told. DC’s a weird, odd, strange place, and sometimes things move fast. Is this weirder than even you would have anticipated being there?

Rep Jim Banks:

Yeah, the, the whole thing is weird, Tony. I mean, presidents don’t take vacations, they don’t take days off. They’re always on. They’re expected to be on. Because at any given moment, you don’t know what’s going to happen that’s going to require the attention of a president. And this president is missing. I mean, I, they, the announcement came yesterday. You make you make a good point at when. LBJ made that announcement. He appeared before the American people and made that announcement. You know, this is unprecedented, but that’s the best comparison. LBJ, in March of an election year saying that he’s that he’s dropping out of the race, and he won’t be the Democrat Party nominee.

Banks continues

This is this is late July. The president does it by social media, doesn’t appear before the people and then he scrubs his entire public schedule. He’s got nothing on his schedule today. And that that’s the part of it that should be concerning to the American people. It’s not just that if he can’t run again, he shouldn’t be president. It’s that this guy is clearly incapable of performing the duties of the President of the United States and commander in chief of this country. And there’s an expectation that he’s going to do it for another six months. That, that to me, that’s scary knowing what’s going on around the world, the issues around the in the hotspots around the world, this this guy is not capable of leading this country for another six months and he should resign because of it.

Tony Katz:

You’re making the argument for President Kamala Harris. Just to put a fine point on it, are you making the argument that Kamala Harris should be President of the United States right now?

Rep Jim Banks:

Look, look, I’m, I’m terrified at the notion of it, but I’m, I’m more terrified at the fact that Xi Jinping and, Putin and Kim Jong Un and Hamas and ISIS and all of the bad guys around the world know that there is not a president of the United States of America. That that’s what I’m. That’s what I’m most concerned about, not endorsing a President Kamala Harris even for one day. But I’m concerned that the message around the world is that there is not a functioning human being in the White House performing the duties as commander in chief. And that, that that scares me. That scares me more than anything at all.

Tony Katz:

My argument is, is pretty simple though. Your choices are limited. Either Biden should be president today or Harris should be president today. Which one should it be today, Sir?

Rep Jim Banks:

I get it Tony. I totally get it. But my choice is that the current president cannot perform the duties. He should step aside. And if that means that the next person up is Kamala Harris, at least the rest of the world knows that there is a, a, a human being who is alive in the White House. And I don’t, I do not have faith in her either. That’s a terrifying thought. But at this point, it’s clear that this president is incapable of performing the duties. As the commander in chief and the president of United States of America. And he made his decision that he’s not running again. But we don’t know where he is. We don’t know what he’s doing. And that that is that is even more terrifying to me.

Tony Katz:

Now, it is true that we didn’t hear from him as I mentioned, we haven’t heard from him yet. While this is playing out regarding where Joe Biden is and, and is he OK? And these questions that they, those around him have caused to be asked, there’s the idea that 14,000,000 Democrats are now being disenfranchised. You have Hoosiers who voted for Joe Biden in a primary. And their vote doesn’t count as somebody who is looking to be the next US senator from the state of Indiana. How does even though you’re a Republican, how do you respond to that?

Rep Jim Banks:

I mean, obviously these Democrats are completely thumbing their nose at the millions of Americans who voted for Joe Biden to be the nominee of the Democrat Party. I mean, in of itself is an attack on our democracy. I mean, they waited until this point. They could have done this before. They could have done this earlier in the process. He could have dropped out many months ago. And this is a key take away of all this. There’s nobody who knows more about what’s going on in the White House and the condition of Joe Biden more than his vice president, Kamala Harris. She is the biggest person responsible for the cover up, I mean she there’s nobody more responsible for the cover up more than her to the of telling the American people the truth about the condition of Joe Biden. So that that’s something to always remember about this. I mean that Joe Biden yesterday supposedly or somebody, whoever wrote his tweets, and his press releases endorsed Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the Democrat ticket, but she’s been in on it.

Banks continues:

And not only that, but she was the border czar that left the border wide open. She’s the one that that completely ignored inflation and drugs flowing into this country and ignored all of the issues that we’re facing in this country. That’s. That that’s, that’s fallen to its knees on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ watch, and I’d say there’s nobody more responsible for that than Kamala Harris covering up the biggest lie in American history.

Tony Katz:

In this whether they care to an open primary as Joe Manchin who has said he will not run for president against Kamala Harris. There’s been conversation about vice presidential picks. I bring this up to you because one of the conversations very seriously being had, it seems is Pete Buttigieg the secretary of transportation. Former mayor of South Bend as a as the potential vice-presidential pick of Kamala Harris, you like the idea of a Vance – Pete Buttigieg matchup?

Rep Jim Banks:

Absolutely. JD Vance would mop the floor with Pete Buttigieg. And remember, Pete is a cabinet secretary in the disastrous Biden Harris administration. So, he’s got, he’s got egg all over his face too. I mean, he’s a cabinet member for a president who for the past 3 1/2 years has been it’s been the weekend at Bernie’s White House and Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg are the two who are parading Bernie Biden around the around the White House, pretending like this guy’s alive and able to do the job. So, JD Vance will mop the floor with the Michigander. Buttigieg hates Indiana so much that he a year ago he moved his residency to Michigan to get out of Indiana. And that’s the type of values this guy has. And, and I sure hope that he’ll be on the ballot because it’ll be a landslide victory for Trump fans in November.

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