‘THE BEST BIDEN EVER.’ On his MSNBC program Wednesday, former Republican Rep. Joe Scarborough launched an impassioned and aggressive defense of President Joe Biden — specifically, of Biden’s mental fitness to serve a second term as president. Scarborough’s performance was an attempt to show that the best defense is a good offense: In Scarborough’s view, the 81-year-old Biden is not only not declining cognitively, but he’s absolutely the best he’s ever been. And to majorities of voters, both Democrats and Republicans, who believe the president is not up to a second term, Scarborough had a simple message: “F*** you.”

Scarborough said he had “spent a couple of hours with Joe Biden, sitting, talking, going around the world as far as talking issues, talking the economy, talking inflation, talking.” After those discussions, Scarborough came to believe that Biden “might misplace a word here or there” but is in fact really sharp. “I undersold him when I said he was cogent,” Scarborough said. “He’s far beyond cogent. In fact, he’s better than he’s ever been intellectually, analytically. Because he’s been around for 50 years.”