Latest news with #HailMarys
Irish Examiner
5 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Lighten Up: Flatley for president? Make Ireland dance again!
When I heard the news that Michael Flatley might run for president of Ireland, I danced a merry jig around the kitchen table. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement. I firmly believe the Lord of the Dance would make a tremendous Uachtarán na hÉireann. For not only does the man possess a great love of Ireland, but he still has his own teeth and hair, and this alone sets him apart from many of us in the herd. Granted, he may have a few miles on the clock, but sure, who doesn't? He is still quite the looker, and would be great at representing our tiny nation on the world stage. And sure, hasn't he been Ireland's representative on the world stage, ever since he took the hand of Jean Bulter, back in the days when we thought a condom machine in a toilet was the height of sophistication? Yerra, Michael Flatley made Ireland cool, long before we knew what cool was. And as president, I believe he could make Ireland dance again too. One of the most notable declines in Ireland over the past number of years, along with the disappearance of the corncrake and the sod of turf, has been our unwillingness to get jiggy on the dance floor. Call me old-fashioned, call me a stick in the mud, but I believe the decline of antics on the dance floor is responsible for many of the ills in our society today. If there were more people out dancing instead of on their phones scrolling, the nation, and indeed the world, would be far better off. The phone is the most pointless piece of equipment in our lives today. Its position in our everyday life far outshines its importance. We need to get back to basics, and we could begin by picking up the phone and firing it into a bog hole. For a long time now, I have been campaigning for the restoration of dancing and, more specifically, the slow set, as a means of getting the country frisky again. And I feel if we had a president in the guise of Michael Flatley, a dancing president, a man with feet of flames, we could well get Ireland dancing again. Michael Flatley has also got a rare quality that many of us lack, in that he has some fine-looking cars back home in his garage. And being a man who appreciates a good car when I see one, this again makes him a winner in my eyes. I have always dreamed of owning a car with no roof on it, not by accident, mind, but by design. Most things I own now on four wheels are up on four blocks. And I love the idea of getting into something and simply turning the key to get it in motion. At the moment, my tractor needs a belt of a hammer to get her started in the morning, and my old jeep needs a few Hail Marys, and a fall of ground, to get the wheels in motion. And this can take its toll on a progressive farmer, no matter how successful I think I am. But with Michael Flatley in the Áras, with his flashy cars in the nearby garage, I feel he could energise the nation. Mary Robinson once remarked about having a light in the window for the Irish scattered throughout the world, but with Flatley in charge, the lights in the Áras would not only be dazzling, but illuminating for all. Flatley for president. It's time to put your best foot forward.
USA Today
30-06-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Jalen Ramsey-Minkah Fitzpatrick trade grades: Who won the Dolphins-Steelers player swap?
A rare June blockbuster trade rocked the NFL world on Monday, as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins completed an unexpected player-for-player swap between two elite secondary players. ESPN's Adam Schefter confirmed that the Steelers were acquiring cornerback Jalen Ramsey from Miami but threw in the jaw-dropping wrinkle that the Dolphins would be getting safety Minkah Fitzpatrick back. Jalen Ramsey announces Steelers trade with sick NFL Films-style clip That's the trade. Ramsey for Fitzpatrick straight up, as each team basically cancels the loss out with a player of similar caliber. Is there really a winner in this instance? We don't get player-for-player swaps like this often, much less two veteran secondary players with All-Pro ceilings. This is the most unexpected resolution to the Ramsey-Dolphins trade conundrum. Let's break down these deals and see who came out on top between Pittsburgh and Miami. TRADE DETAILS Pittsburgh receives: CB Ramsey Miami receives: S Fitzpatrick Pittsburgh Steelers There is something atypically urgent about the way the Steelers have operated throughout 2025, from signing quarterback Aaron Rodgers to pushing the chips in on other win-now veterans like wide receiver DK Metcalf and cornerback Darius Slay. The Rodgers signing alone is clearly a one-year proposition to win a title if at all possible. Trading for Ramsey makes a ton of sense in that specific vacuum, but what happens after 2025? The Steelers haven't been meaningful Super Bowl contenders in quite some time, definite playoff factors but typically dispatched from January football in short order. Coach Mike Tomlin's formula to get just enough out of a flawed Pittsburgh team to qualify for the postseason is admirable but comes with a hard ceiling. Perhaps an aggressive, all-in approach will benefit the Steelers in 2025 if Rodgers can elevate the offense, but what happens if even this amount of Hail Marys on top-end veteran talent still falls short of the ultimate goal? When does Pittsburgh just finally commit to a meaningful roster retooling to raise the team's long-term ceiling. Ramsey is a spark plug who can lock down one of the cornerback spots on your roster comfortably, but the Steelers already brought in Slay to play alongside promising young cornerback Joey Porter Jr. Who moves to the slot? Ramsey? Trading away an elite safety in Fitzpatrick is a dicey proposition if the plan is to play Ramsey in the slot this season, even if he'd be quite good there. Will Ramsey move to safety? He will turn 31 in October and might be nearing that transitionary stage of his career where playing safety keeps his career going longer. He may well thrive there, but you already had a really good player in Fitzpatrick manning one of those spots. The Steelers will probably turn to free safety Juan Thornhill to replace Fitzpatrick at free safety unless that's where Ramsey is headed. If the plan is to keep Ramsey at cornerback, his most likely landing spot is to play slot corner. Beanie Bishop wasn't a great slot corner, but he's young and had room to grow there. Ramsey is who he is at this point. The player is really good, but the fit and suddenly crowded room are unnecessarily complicated. Yes, this is a win-now move, but does this really make your defense that much better? If the play was keeping Fitzpatrick and adding Ramsey, sure, why not, but the swap really turns this from a luxury addition for a talented defense to a curious allocation of resources. The Steelers' secondary is much flashier now, but is it really better? Does this trade just cancel everything out? We're really unsure if Pittsburgh really made a smart move for the team's future or just got too desperate to make a splash for splash's sake. If Pittsburgh falters this year, don't be shocked if the team finally just throws its hands up and commits to long-term solutions. Ramsey could hypothetically be dealt yet again in that instance. Grade: C+ Miami Dolphins The Dolphins were headed to a breakup with Rasmey, so the trade itself just felt like the logical conclusion to something inevitable. The return is the shock, but it's a huge boost for Miami's short-term interests. With coach Mike McDaniel and general manager Chris Grier both needing to get wins as soon as possible, getting a bona fide starter back for Ramsey has to feel like a real lifeline. Legitimate draft capital probably made more sense for the Dolphins long-term, but if the team didn't get better results this fall, would McDaniel and Grier be a part of that future? Fitzpatrick is a known known, and a really good known known at that. Having started his career in Miami, Fitzpatrick will return to the Dolphins and slot right in at free safety. Trading Fitzpatrick away in the first place always felt like a strange move for the Dolphins, but they really need him now with Ramsey out the door. Not getting any draft capital back for Ramsey might sting a little bit, but Fitzpatrick is a quality veteran starter who instantly elevates your safety room and more or less balances out the Ramsey loss. For where the Dolphins were a week ago, staring down a future with no Ramsey and no other great options to mitigate his loss this fall, getting Fitzpatrick back has to feel like a coup for the immediate future. We're not sure what this Dolphins team will do in 2025, but it will be able to say it traded away a player like Ramsey in the summer and somehow got a similarly talented secondary player back. That has to mean something for the team's short-term contention plans and for the people needing short-term results. Grade: A-
Fox Sports
22-06-2025
- Automotive
- Fox Sports
Fuel-Saving Maestro Scott Dixon Can't Save Enough To Beat Alex Palou
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Scott Dixon knows he doesn't have a shot at a seventh INDYCAR title this year. So going for race victory No. 59 is the strategy every week. Even if it means a roll of the dice. Putting Dixon in a position to save fuel to potentially win a race doesn't always equate to a roll of the dice. But Sunday, at Road America, to try to go the final 18 laps on fuel was just a little bit too much at a 4.014-mile track where the fuel run was approximately 13 to 15 laps. Dixon had to pit with two laps remaining, relinquishing the lead to Alex Palou, who won for the sixth time in nine races this year. Now 155 points behind Palou, Dixon expects the strategy to focus on victory lane even more than usual. "We have nothing to lose," Dixon said. "We're just going for some race wins. You're pretty much out of the championship. Nothing to lose. Throw some Hail Marys." Palou has seen Dixon throw some Hail Marys and make them work. So he, at first, was frustrated and confused. He wouldn't be able to beat Dixon straight up because Dixon had on the softer tires and would have been able to hold him off if the caution came out and they had a restart. "When I was following Scott, I could see that he was not saving as much as I was," Palou said. "I was like, 'This guy is crazy. How is he going to do it?' But I didn't know. I don't have a lot of information. "If it was another driver, I would have probably just focused on myself. But I know that Scott can make crazy stuff happen." Palou's strategist, Barry Wanser, had his engineers triple check their numbers to make sure that Dixon couldn't make it on fuel, as they continued to tell Palou to save over the final 10 laps. "I'm like, 'Are we missing something here? Because Dixon is running numbers — lap times. He's not going to be able to get it based on the number we gave him,'" Wanser said. "They double-checked everything, triple-checked. But we were pretty confident we were going to be fine." Once Dixon had to pit, Palou's biggest concern turned to Felix Rosenqvist, who had fresher tires. But Rosenqvist couldn't catch Palou and settled for second, with Santino Ferrucci third, Kyle Kirkwood fourth and Marcus Armstrong fifth. Kirkwood, the only driver other than Palou to win this year, moved to second in the standings, 93 points behind Palou. While it seems everything has worked this year for Palou, it has not for his teammate Dixon, who had to start in Row 13 after a penalty during qualifying for impeding Devlin DeFrancesco. So even with the fast car, he had to try an alternative strategy. "It's been one of those years, man. Anything we do is just kind of crappy," Dixon said. "We'll keep at it, keep knocking on the door. The car has got good speed and hopefully we'll get some winning ways going." It does appear that Dixon's ability to save fuel has been neutralized by the hybrid, which adds about 100 pounds of rear weight. Dixon feels he would have made it without the hybrid, which was introduced during last season (of course, that potentially would have altered the strategy of others). "Fuel mileage is way worse with the hybrid, which makes no sense of why we even have it," Dixon said. "It's the same for everybody. Everybody's got to carry this lump of weight around." And many were hoping for that late caution that never came. Palou could have used it, too, to be more on the attack rather than saving fuel himself. Just not needing to save as much as Dixon. "You're throwing some pretty wild strategies there just to try and make something happen, but it looked like [ours was] actually the conservative one. The one a lot of the others took was just the right one to take," Dixon said. "We had to bank on at least another lap or two [of caution]. The unfortunate part is the car was super fast. Like even with all our speed today, we were just having to save fuel every lap. So it was kind of frustrating." If he is rolling the dice, why not just stay on track and let it run out of fuel and see if a miracle could happen? "You've got pretty good senses," Dixon said. "You know whether you're going to make it or not. You don't want to be that person hanging out on the track for a lap or two." Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. recommended Get more from NTT INDYCAR SERIES Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
The Sun
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Love Island is about many things – but love certainly isn't one of them
LOVE Island celebrates its tenth birthday this week – and I confess I watch the show. But I'd rather be frogmarched to the nearest convent, forced to take a vow of chastity and spend the next 50 years doing Hail Marys over my Rosary beads than spend a single second in the Love Island villa. 7 7 And it seems I'm not the only one. Original Love Island winner Jessica Hayes says she was so put off by blokes that she has given up on romance and actually taken a vow of celibacy! Holy smoke. That's probably not the ringing endorsement ITV producers will be rolling out for their anniversary coverage. Now, I'm not some bra-burning man hater. I promise! I can understand why so many young, buff singletons would quite happily shove their granny under the nearest bus to get a ticket to Spain and hook up with fit blokes. The world of dating is hard. Horrible, even. You have to endlessly swipe through apps looking at profiles of tattoo-smothered men posing aggressively in front of the mirror in their gym, or even worse, their loo (yuck) while reeling off impossible demands they expect of any woman. She must be a ten out of ten. She must let him hang out with his mates until 3am. She must be totally attentive to his every need. She must not be demanding. Then comes the awkward first dates. Meeting in a crowded pub (just in case he is not your Mr Right but actually a crazed axe murderer), sipping a gin and slim while you are asked the inevitable roll call of questions. Where did you grow up? What do you do for a living? Do you like travelling? Forget sparks flying, these encounters can be more boreathon than bonkathon. Who wouldn't prefer to hang out in a sun-drenched villa and coupling up with a perfectly chiselled gym bunny? Love Island's Maura Higgins reacts after Tom Walker denies nasty comment But a trip through Love Island's best bits reveals that romance is the last thing you should expect in the villa. Remember when Maura Higgins was getting ready to go to the hideaway with Tom Walker? She overheard him boasting: 'I just want to see if she's all mouth!' as the rest of the cocky lads set about laughing. Maura, sassy Irishwoman that she is, didn't stand for that rubbish. Rounding on Tom, she fumed: 'Are you joking? That's disgraceful, Tom. That's absolutely f***ing disgusting.' Gormless Tom was left gawping like a goldfish as he tried to claim he didn't mean it, was just copying the lads and was really a nice chap after all. Maura had won over the nation's hearts with her straight talking. But she was still in the lonely hearts club herself. Then there was poor Zara Holland, who was stripped of her Miss Great Britain title and crown after having sex with Alex Bowen on the show. Cheeky grin Dissolving in tears as she realised all her hard work had gone down the toilet like so many make-up-stained tissues, the rest of the girls dried her eyes, gave her hugs and told her she will move on to bigger and better things. So what was her fella Alex doing? Staring at the ground, looking bemused and shrugging his shoulders. He may look like an Adonis carved out of stone, but is he really husband material? And there was the time when Jordan Hames asked Anna Vakili to be his girlfriend on the show in 2019. Flashing a cheeky grin, he said he was 'so nervous' to pop the question and told how the couple had 'been through so much' in the villa they could 'literally get through anything'. Apart from two more days together apparently. Just 48 hours later he was cracking on with new girl India Reynolds, staring into her big brown eyes and telling her: 'I feel like I have been gravitating towards you.' Yeah, gravitating a bit like a dodgy Soviet rocket that has exploded in space and come crashing back down to Earth. Anna came storming over to confront and dump him. Romeo and Juliet this ain't. So by all means stick the telly on, tuck into a box of Milk Tray and enjoy Love Island. But trust me, ladies — you are much more likely to get pied than find love across the fire pit. GAME ON! LIONESSES CAN STILL SHINE BRIGHT 7 7 IT has been three years since our proud Lionesses won the women's Euros – sending the nation into a footie frenzy. The stunning victory over Germany was a defining moment in our country's sporting history. And it inspired a new generation of girls to grab a football and get on to the pitch. Our reigning champs are gearing up to defend their title when the tournament kicks off in Switzerland next month. Manager Sarina Wiegman has named her squad. And we have a brilliant chance of victory – even without Millie Bright and her love life saga. So come on, ladies – show the blokes how it's done and go all the way this summer. The whole country is behind you! BENCH BAN SO BARMY 7 MORE grim news of bossy Britain. A lovely pub called The Trafalgar, in Greenwich, South London, put lots of wooden benches outside so people can enjoy a pie and a pint overlooking the River Thames. They had to – it was Covid. Politicians had made it a criminal offence to sup a beverage indoors. But now those fun-hating pen-pushers at Labour-run Greenwich council have ordered the boozer, managed by Vasil Vasilev, to remove half its outdoor seating. Why? The benches are packed with happy punters spending cash and boosting the local economy. And the street is wide enough for pushchairs and wheelchairs to still get down there. I should know – I live up the road. The landlord says that if he is forced to pull down his seating he may have to slash staff to plug the hole in his coffers. I thought the Labour government's number one priority is economic growth? Maybe Chancellor Rachel Reeves should get down to South London, have a word with her comrades in the local council and tell them to lay off our pubs. Let Brits drink beer, I say! WALL? I WILL NAIL IT 7 I'M off round my mum and dad's house this weekend. To build a wall. Turns out sticking a few bricks back on to the front garden wall will set you back thousands and thousands if you ask a professional to do it. So me, my sister and my mum are going to do it ourselves. We have bought the ready-mixed cement and, more importantly, dusted off our chicest dungarees and most fetching headscarves for the task. Who says building stuff is man's work? I am sure we are up to the task. I just hope I don't break a nail. MEG'S MIXED SIGNAL I'M confused. Are Prince Harry and Meghan Markle private citizens who want to keep their kids away from the cameras? Or are they fame-hungry wannabe celebs? The once-royal couple have spent the week releasing videos and pics of their intimate family moments. First it was a cringey video of the pair twerking in the hospital delivery room in a bid to induce the birth of Lilibet. Then Meghan up-loaded photos from their family trip to Disneyland to celebrate their daughter's fourth birthday. Looks like rank hypocrisy to me. TULIP'S PARTY GAMES 7 FORMER minister Tulip Siddiq may be under investigation for corruption in Bangladesh, but that didn't stop the Labour politician throwing herself a glitzy party to celebrate ten years of being an MP. Lucky guests were treated to a free glass of fizz, while Tulip, handed out certificates to party volunteers who had helped her get elected. But the event itself was all rather cloak and dagger. The location was top secret, and guests were only told where to go hours before doors opened. Was she worried about a knock at the door?
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrats Aren't Punishing Anyone For Their 'Original Sin'
Earlier this month, an adviser to Democratic donors texted me to ask if I had a copy of 'Original Sin,' the new book from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson chronicling former President Joe Biden's 'decline, its cover-up and his disastrous choice to run again,' in the words of the book's subtitle. I told him I didn't have one yet. 'I want to know if there's anyone else we should be mad at,' the adviser, who requested anonymity to preserve relationships, texted back. Even before the arrival of 'Original Sin,' most leading Democrats had landed on a quartet of Biden advisers as clear villains in the tale of Biden's physical, mental and political decline: first lady Jill Biden; Anthony Bernal, one of her top aides who seemingly managed to accumulate power through loyalty, gossip and fashion advice; strategist Mike Donilon; and lobbyist-turned-adviser Steve Ricchetti. Biden and those four, the Democratic Party's internal narrative goes, created a White House environment where bad news was snuffed out before it could reach the principal's ears, enabling an autopilot decision to run an aging and unpopular president for reelection with no backup plan if things went awry. The result? A revitalized Donald Trump threatening America with the very authoritarianism Biden's initial bid for the presidency was built around stopping, and a Democratic Party left listless and aimless. For two decades, HuffPost has been fearless, unflinching, and relentless in pursuit of the truth. to keep us around for the next 20 — we can't do this without you. All of the above advisers are so closely tied to Biden, whose unpopularity has already rendered him nearly persona non grata when it comes to the future of the Democratic Party, that there is little question they, too, will face a form of political exile. The question now facing Democrats is simple: Who still needs to say 50 Hail Marys as penance? Did anyone else commit a mortal sin deserving of banishment? A week after the book's release, the party seems to have made its decision: Not really. Party leaders and potential 2028 candidates are happy to say Biden should not have run again, but seem reluctant to draw any further conclusions about what it means for the party's decision-making process or who should play a role in shaping its future. So far, the number of Democrats publicly calling out additional top officials is small. Megadonor John Morgan, not known for his bashfulness, suggested top Biden officials should be 'disqualified' from a future in the party. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, now running for governor of California, has demanded that both former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Vice President Kamala Harris be upfront with voters about what they knew about Biden's condition. (Harris is a potential candidate for governor, and Becerra, like Villaraigosa, has already announced a bid.) 'People around the president were intentionally complicit, or told outright lies in a systematic cover-up to keep Joe Biden's mental decline from the public,' Villaraigosa told HuffPost, noting the book specifically says Biden once mixed up Becerra with another Latino member of the Cabinet. 'We've come to learn that this cover-up included two prominent California politicians. What did they know? When did they know it? Why didn't they say anything?' Harris didn't respond to a request for comment. Becerra, in a statement, simply said he 'met with President Biden when needed to make important decisions and to execute with my team at HHS.' 'It's clear the president was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic,' Becerra said. 'And we delivered.' Those looking for new villains in the pages of 'Original Sin' might not find what they are looking for. The book does not necessarily indict specific acts — if the actions it describes count as a cover-up, there's no shredding of confidential documents or witnesses bribed. Instead, it indicts a style of governance in which a small number of close advisers hold disproportionate sway and keep upsetting information from reaching the president's ears while they insist on a reality of a fully functioning president not matched by evidence — one that would be scandalous even if Joe Biden was winning back-to-back episodes of 'Jeopardy!' The most glaring consequence of this, in the book, is Biden's repeated belief in polls indicating he was winning the 2024 election against now-President Trump. Over and over again, Biden attempts to reassure interlocutors by telling them polls show he (and sometimes only he) is beating Trump. This, to put it lightly, was not actually the state of polling in late 2023 and early-to-mid-2024. One example: On July 3, 2024, Democratic governors from around the country flew into Washington to meet with Biden in the aftermath of his debate disaster. During the meeting, the president insisted polls showed him as the candidate best positioned to beat Trump (they didn't) and that voters cared more about saving democracy than about Biden's health (they also didn't). Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, on the way out of the meeting, confronted Ricchetti about the discrepancy between Biden's confidence and the polls the governors were seeing, which showed Trump gaining ground in blue states like New Mexico and Maine. 'The president's referencing polls where he's leading,' Healey told Ricchetti. 'What polls is he referencing? Because they're different from the polls that governors are seeing in our states.' 'I've been doing this for 30 years,' Ricchetti responded. 'I know polls.' A Biden spokesperson didn't address how the White House worked during the Biden administration, instead issuing a statement reiterating the former president's fitness for office: 'There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy. Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the president wasn't otherwise engaged in the important matters of the presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective president who led our country with empathy and skill.' The others blamed are similarly unapologetic. In an appearance in February at Harvard, Donilon blamed the party for abandoning Biden after what he insisted was a single bad debate performance. 'It was getting written as this fact, 'Oh, Biden was mentally impaired,'' he said. 'I don't know how much time any of those people spent with him — I know how much time I spent with him. I know what I saw.' Tapper and Thompson's prodigious reporting — they interviewed more than 200 people, most of them after the 2024 election — does name and at least attempts to shame many other Biden loyalists, particularly those who led the charge in combating journalists and others who questioned Biden's vitality. But other high-profile figures in Biden's orbit mostly escape direct blame. Jeff Zients, Biden's second chief of staff, often seems like a background character, warranting just 31 mentions across the book's 332 pages. Other key players, like Biden's first chief of staff, Ron Klain, leave the White House after the midterms and aren't present as Biden's decline accelerates. Anita Dunn, the White House's communications guru, may be the Biden insider with the most to theoretically lose. She played a key role in blessing and running Future Forward, the super PAC that raised $560 million to support Biden and then Harris in the 2024 election. It's unclear if Future Forward will remain the major Democratic super PAC going forward, and a broader backlash to Biden world could snuff out its hopes. Dunn is mentioned just 27 times. (For comparison's sake, Donilon warrants 80 mentions and Ricchetti 59.) Some Democratic donors told me they are devoting additional skepticism to pitches from Biden-linked operatives, but there appears to be little desire for a party-wide reckoning. When I asked Villaraigosa, for instance, if he would no longer consider hiring former Biden operatives on his campaign, he demurred and kept the focus on higher-ranking officials. 'I only know what I read,' he said. 'The book focuses primarily on his coterie of advisers, the Cabinet and the vice president.' Other Democratic elites consider the book little more than a distraction driven by a hype machine that invariably spins up behind a book co-written by one of CNN's highest-profile anchors, and would prefer the party push forward and focus on countering the authoritarianism Biden's decision ultimately enabled. Others acknowledge the problem but have simply moved on to worrying about podcasts. A handful still have their heads in the sand. Does the party need to do more to repair its relationship with voters? In an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, Tapper said as much. 'I think one of the reasons the Democratic Party's numbers are still so low is that they have not reckoned with the lies that they told about this,' Tapper said. 'These are not lies about tariffs. These are not lies about economic policy or things that I don't fully understand as the average voter. These are lies about things that we all perfectly understand: aging, colds, being addled, not being your best. These are things that we all have access to.' Very few party operatives seem to agree. Most believe these questions about Biden's fitness for office won't haunt the party for long, enabling political comebacks for those close to Biden and allowing the party as a whole to move past the recent unpleasantness. 'It's much more important for the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee to be able to answer tough questions about Joe Biden's immigration policy than for them to be able to answer tough questions about his age,' said an adviser to a prospective presidential candidate, requesting anonymity to predict the future.
