Rare is the incumbent member of Congress who agrees to a debate. For Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney of New York, however, there was no choice.
That’s because a court drew both of the powerful representatives into the same district, New York’s 12th. Both Maloney and Nadler have been in the House of Representatives for three decades, both serving the island of Manhattan.
Thus, there was no choice: If they wanted to continue to serve, they needed to debate. On Tuesday night, they did — and, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said during his show Wednesday, the debate should tell voters across the nation everything they needed to know about the Democratic Party, which he condemned as “a cartel that exists only to perpetuate itself.”
If you’re going to perpetuate a cartel, of course, there are worse places to do it than New York’s 12th Congressional District — which, Carlson said, “turns out to be the richest district in American politics; four of the Democratic Party’s top five fundraising zip codes are within this district’s boundaries.”
Maloney, 76, and Nadler, 75, were joined on stage by Suraj Patel — who, at 38, was supposed to be the fresh face in the mix. Instead, as Carlson noted, he reinforced why the Democrats are stuck in the mire in 2022.
Trending:
“We’re going to start tonight with a headline from the debate, which you’ve already likely seen: Neither [Maloney or Nadler] is cheerleading for Joe Biden,” Carlson noted.
The candidates were asked whether or not President Joe Biden should run again in 2024.
Nadler’s response: “Too early to say. It doesn’t serve the purpose of the Democratic Party to deal with that until after the midterms.”
Maloney’s take: “I don’t believe he’s running for re-election.”
Will the Republicans take back Congress in the midterms?
“Well, like everything she says, it’s not exactly a profound observation. Of course, Joe Biden isn’t running for re-election. He can barely find the men’s room,” Carlson said.
“The second the midterms are done, he will find a way to tell the rest of us that. So, that was not very interesting. It was predictable.”
However, once Biden sets off into the sunset, he leaves a party behind him — the party we saw on stage Tuesday. Carlson said “what was very interesting and what tells you a lot about the Democratic Party is how these two candidates talked about their personal accomplishments and their goals for the country.”
For instance, “Nadler gathered the strength to boast about his greatest accomplishment in the Congress — that would be impeaching George W. Bush, twice,” Carlson continued.
“And an insurrectionist Republican Party for the first time in our history, trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power,” Nadler said. “Now, therefore, I have, I — I am leading the fight to, uh, stop this, and I have passed the, uh, two impeachments in leading this, I impeached Bush twice.”
Nadler got the names wrong, obviously, but he was at the head of the movement to impeach former President Donald J. Trump — twice. The problem, Carlson said, isn’t that he miffed on the president he helped impeach.
“Jerry Nadler is asked, ‘What are you proud of?’ And he’s talking about multiple impeachments. Whatever you think of impeachments, did they improve a single life in this country?” Carlson said. “No.”
Then, Carlson noted the boilerplate “priorities” Maloney has for America.
“Our work is not over yet,” she responded. “We need to protect women. We need to pass gun safety laws. We need to combat climate change.”
“So, those are her top priorities. This is one of the most powerful sitting members of Congress. First priority: protecting women. In other words: more abortions, protecting women from having children, so they can continue to work in some depressing midtown bank,” Carlson said. “Don’t raise your family. Go to work.
“What Carolyn Maloney does not mean by protecting women, of course, is punishing criminals,” he added. “They’re free to beat women on the subway in New York with no consequences — and they routinely do. But that’s number one, protecting women, more abortions.”
Then came the other priorities, no less grim.
“Number two, gun safety laws, Carlson said. “Now, none of these gun safety laws, meaning gun confiscation laws, will be enforced in places where the Democrats get a huge percentage of the vote, like Chicago or Baltimore or New York or Gary, Indiana. They get a pass, but disarm the other side.
“Then, number three, combating climate change because you don’t need air conditioning in the summertime. You don’t need a car!”
Maloney, of course, didn’t mention anything about the economy — which is what’s on more voters’ minds than either abortion, gun safety or climate change, according to a July 22-24 Washington Post-Schar School poll.
But maybe Patel brought something new to the party. After all, he’s the 38-year-old underdog here, even if “underdog” in this contest means being head of a multimillion-dollar hotel management firm. What did he have to say for himself?
“I am a lawyer, a professor and an Obama Democrat — from whom I learned the Democrats lead best when we lead with new ideas, energy and a new generation of leadership,” he said, by way of introduction.
“Yeah. That guy’s got new ideas and energy, just like Barack Obama,” Carlson said. “That’s why he’s supporting Joe Biden running for re-election again. It’s pathetic. It’s not just him. It’s not just Maloney. It’s not just poor Jerry Nadler. It’s the entire Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has run out of gas.
“The Democratic Party at this point is a cartel that exists only to perpetuate itself and the elderly mediocrities who run and benefit from it — all of them,” he continued, noting there was hardly a fresh face in the bunch.
Even Kamala Harris — who, at 57, is supposed to be Biden’s spry replacement — “still talks like a dementia patient, slowly and incomprehensibly,” Carlson said, before playing a clip of her attempting to explain the mail-in ballot process.
“They said when they voted — I think sometimes the voting is you’re just putting in your order. This is what you want,” she said.
“So, when people stood in those lines for hours, when they sat at their kitchen table for hours figuring out how they were going to fill out their ballot to vote by mail, when they drove by those drop boxes with their kids in the back seat patiently waiting to drop off that ballot, they were putting in an order.”
These were remarks given at a Democratic National Committee event on July 30. We’re more than a year and a half into the Biden administration, and she hasn’t grown into the role. Don’t expect her to, because this is what the Biden presidency — and her party — is. This is the shambles it’s all been reduced to.
The Maloney-Nadler showdown was only a heavyweight bout in terms of seniority and name-recognition. Neither has new ideas — or any ideas, for that matter, which can’t be reduced to talking points. Both are ossified, slow on their feet. Both should go into retirement and hand the gloves over to a new generation.
But who is this new generation? In this case, Suraj Patel, an “Obama Democrat” who leans on hope-and-change rhetoric from 2008. It could have been worse, however. We could have had a member of “the squad” — that group of “fresh-faced” Democrats that leans on 19th-century ideas from Karl Marx — on the stage instead.
This is your Democratic Party, America. It was all on display during the debate Tuesday night, even if it was just for a district in Manhattan. Remember their words, their promises and their “accomplishments” well when you cast a ballot this fall.
