Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The Associated Press calls out Trump's cognitive hypocrisy

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

Associated Press:

Trump challenges Biden to a cognitive test but confuses the name of the doctor who tested him

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee referred to Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician for part of his presidency, as “Ronny Johnson.” The moment came as Trump was questioning Biden’s mental acuity, something he often does on the campaign trail and social media.

“He doesn’t even know what the word ‘inflation’ means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did,” the former president said of Biden during a speech at a convention of Turning Point Action in Detroit.

Seconds later, he continued, “Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately.”

Politico:

Biden knows ‘exactly what he is doing’ and will likely win election, says German chancellor

In an interview on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Olaf Scholz made assurances that Biden can provide critical leadership as the group of global leaders faces a complex web of mounting issues.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz indicated strong support and confidence in U.S. President Joe Biden’s leadership amid mounting concerns about Biden’s mental acuity and the specter of former President Donald Trump’s return to office.

In an interview with Axel Springer media outlets on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy on Saturday, Scholz made assurances that Biden “knows exactly what he is doing,” and can provide critical leadership as the group of global leaders faces a complex web of issues, including multiple conflagrations and hotly-contested elections that threaten to upend the international status quo. POLITICO is owned by Axel Springer.

There are not, in fact, “mounting concerns” about President Joe Biden’s mental acuity. That’s a Republican talking point, raised by House Speaker Mike Johnson and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Just remember, every accusation by a Republican is a confession:

Peter Wehner/The Atlantic:

The Motivated Ignorance of Trump Supporters

Trump supporters can’t claim they didn’t know

But something has changed for me in the Trump era. I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics is binding them to an unusually—and I would say undeniably—destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside.

If a person insists, despite the overwhelming evidence, that Trump was the target of an assassination plot hatched by Biden and carried out by the FBI, this is more than an intellectual failure; it is a moral failure, and a serious one at that. It’s only reasonable to conclude that such Trump supporters have not made a good-faith effort to understand what is really and truly happening. They are choosing to live within the lie, to invoke the words of the former Czech dissident and playwright Vaclav Havel.

One of the criteria that need to be taken into account in assessing the moral culpability of people is how absurd the lies are that they are espousing; a second is how intentionally they are avoiding evidence that exposes the lies because they are deeply invested in the lie; and a third is is how consequential the lie is.

Jill Lawrence with a Father’s Day note in The Bulwark:

Joe Biden Won’t Give Up on Hunter or America

Who is the real tough guy in this race? It’s not Donald Trump.

Persistence, restraint, forcefulness, forbearance—these qualities speak to an underlying toughness, and Biden has demonstrated them all during his presidency. The Hunter Biden saga is no exception.

Here’s what I mean:

When he took office, Joe Biden retained Delaware’s Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, David Weiss, to finish an investigation into whether Hunter Biden falsified a gun form and evaded taxes while he was addicted to drugs. Joe Biden did not attack the justice system when a Trump-appointed judge—Maryellen Noreika—questioned Hunter’s plea agreement, which ultimately fell apart. Joe Biden didn’t comment or intervene when Attorney General Merrick Garland—his own appointee—elevated Weiss to special counsel status, allowing him broader authority to investigate and bring charges.

When his son went on trial in Wilmington, again in Noreika’s courtroom, Joe Biden did not attack the judge. He also said he would not pardon Hunter if he were convicted. After the guilty verdict Tuesday, the president said he was proud of “the man he is today” and added: “As I also said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.”

Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post:

The Hunter Biden and Trump trials were a litmus test. Only the Bidens passed.

The president’s family rallied in support of one of their own. Trump family members were conspicuously absent.

That a prosecutor appointed by felon and former president Donald Trump should bring a case of the type so rarely charged only heightened the queasy feeling that Hunter Biden was forced to bear the burden of being a president’s son. “As former president Donald Trump complains that he is a victim of selective prosecution for his brazen attempts to defy a federal subpoena, Hunter Biden may actually be experiencing it,” David Graham wrote for the Atlantic. Even a juror said the prosecution was a “waste” of tax dollars.

The reaction of many MAGA types and their captive right-wing media — seemingly disappointed that the allegedly “rigged” judicial system apparently wasn’t so rigged after all — was one sign of the moral chasm and twisted logic that has come to define MAGA-era politics.

Elizabeth Dias/New York Times:

One Week That Revealed the Struggles of the Anti-Abortion Movement

The movement looks for a path forward: “Is the goal the absolute abolition of abortion in our nation?”

In one chaotic week, the anti-abortion movement showed how major players are pulling in various directions and struggling to find a clear path forward two years after their victory of overturning Roe v. Wade.

The divisions start at the most fundamental level of whether to even keep pushing to end abortion or to move on to other areas of reproductive health, like fertility treatments. A movement that once marched nearly in lock step finds itself mired in infighting and unable to settle on a basic agenda.

In some cases, hard-liners are seizing the reins, rejecting the incremental strategy that made their movement successful in overturning Roe. Other abortion opponents are backing away, sensing the political volatility of the moment.

At a lunch at the Southern Baptist Convention this week, Tom Ascol, a prominent conservative pastor from Florida, bemoaned what the fragmentation meant for their cause.

“The most important thing is, can we agree on the goal?” he said in a panel discussion. “Is the goal the absolute abolition of abortion in our nation?”

“Trump isn’t to blame for the fact that he’s still the leader of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is.”

Yes.

Neel U. Sukhatme and Alexander Billy/The Hill:

Let Donald Trump and all people with felony convictions vote

Former President Trump’s conviction in Manhattan Criminal Court last month has many people asking: Can Trump even vote in the upcoming election given his felony status?

We should take this opportunity to think more broadly. It’s time to remove barriers to democracy and restore voting rights for all Americans with past felony convictions.  

It’s only fair. 

Lea Page/New York Times:

What Happens When You Knock on 8,000 Doors

Over six months, we knocked on the doors of over 8,000 registered voters from across the political spectrum. We didn’t know what to expect, but we certainly didn’t anticipate how eager people were to share very personal stories — not just eager, but, it seemed, compelled.

There’s an immediate intimacy in having a conversation on someone’s doorstep. It is, after all, a threshold between public and private, but who would have thought that political canvassing would be so conducive to such unvarnished honesty? Perhaps because of the fracturing of our communities, we encountered an almost universal need to be witnessed and validated, to trust.

…

It never felt like a loss. We had stood together on porches and broken steps, among pots of petunias and cans of sodden cigarette butts, and we listened. People told stories full of pride and full of pain. Do you see me? they seemed to ask in a hundred different ways. Do you see my beauty? Do you see my struggle?

They were asking so little of us. It was easy to say yes.