What is Fox News outraged about now?
Well, in a seeming nod to the faux indignation over Barack Obama’s tan suit, the right-wing network’s outrage du jour has centered on President Joe Biden occasionally rocking Skechers while out and about.
In fact, according to one Fox host, the president walking around in sneakers is akin to “wearing a speedo and flip-flops to a funeral.”
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Earlier this week, Politico reported that while the 80-year-old commander-in-chief downplays his age, subtle accommodations have been made for him in recent months. Besides noting that Biden has begun using a shorter staircase to exit and enter Air Force One, Politico also pointed out that, as “another concession to comfort necessitated by age,” the president now sometimes wears athletic shoes while traveling.
Over on Fox News, which has relentlessly portrayed the president as senile and decrepit, Biden’s latest sartorial choice is further proof that the leader of the free world is unfit for office.
After ending his new primetime show with a rundown of the story, Jesse Watters snarked on Wednesday night that Biden was “having to slip into something more comfy” before reading aloud a text from a viewer who was upset over the president’s casual appearance.
“Maybe RFK Jr. should start wearing Carhartt sweatshirts and baggy basketball shorts. Maybe then they will take him seriously,” the viewer huffed, referencing the anti-vaccine activist and longshot Democratic presidential candidate.
Over on Fox & Friends First the following morning, co-hosts Todd Piro and Carley Shimkus joked with Fox News Radio host Jimmy Failla that the president wearing Skechers was comparable to “bumper bowling.” Piro later went on MAGA-boosting anchor Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business Network program to further snark about Biden’s footwear.
“Yeah. Changing the steps and the shoes is going to solve all the problems, he all of a sudden will appear extremely strong on the world stage in both China and Russia and all our international adversaries will quake in their boots,” he declared. “Obviously not. You can’t fix Joe Biden by fixing the shoes or the steps.”
It was on Fox News midday panel show Outnumbered, however, when the rage over the president’s shoes really took on a cartoonish tenor.
Teeing up the topic, anchor Harris Faulkner said that while she’d normally “just give a yawn to all of it” because “we often change our footwear,” it was different with Biden. “But, you know, when you look at him juxtaposed against some of those he would run against. Donald Trump—they’re not that far in age. Joe Manchin—not that far off in age with the president, who’s an octogenarian,” she stated.
Co-host Dagen McDowell, meanwhile, took the ball and ran with it. Noting that she had made the same observation the previous night on Sean Hannity’s show, she suggested that Biden’s shoes were proof he had dementia.
“Well, I made a joke last night on Hannity, those shoes—my father will be 87 in a week—and to a man of that generation wearing those shoes, particularly as commander in chief in public, when you're going on, this is formal business,” McDowell exclaimed. “That’s the equivalent of wearing your bedroom slippers outside. That’s like wearing a Speedo and flip-flops to a funeral!”
Claiming that the “elitist snobs in the White House are blithely lying” to the public “because they think we're stupid,” she then offered up an armchair diagnosis of the president’s cognitive abilities.
“We’ve cared for elderly parents and relatives and we can look at this man and see what’s going on,” McDowell concluded. “We know dementia, we know age, we know Alzheimer’s when we see it. And we look at Joe Biden and think, we would not let him drive our car in an empty church parking lot. We know what’s happening with him. It’s sad, but distressing.”
