'Disqualifying from beginning to end': Columnist says media needs to refocus on Trump

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank believes that President Joe Biden needs to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, if for no other reason than it would take away any excuse for the media to not shift focus back to former President Donald Trump's profound unfitness for office.

In his latest piece, Milbank reviewed Trump's campaign rally in Florida this week and concluded that "from beginning to end, it was disqualifying."

He noted that Trump repeatedly seemed at odds with reality when he decried an economy "collapsing into a cesspool of ruin" despite featuring low unemployment, significantly cooling inflation, and a stock market at near record highs.

Milbank also zeroed in on Trump's continued tributes to the violent criminals who attacked the United States Capitol building on his behalf on January 6th, 2021.

"Less amusingly, he said those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were 'hostages, unfairly imprisoned,' who 'should be out soon' because of the Supreme Court," writes Milbank. "And he announced that 'we have nuclear submarines and five warships in Cuba.' Was Trump publicly divulging the location of U.S. nuclear assets? Or when he said 'we,' did he mean Russia? Neither one was a good look."

Milbank concluded by expressing alarm that Biden and the Democrats were letting Trump off the hook by having the president stay in the race even as multiple members within his own party doubt that he's fit to serve another four years in the White House.

"But apparently this is not what the voters are going to be hearing about for the next four months," he wrote. "Will Biden, the Democrats and the commentariat really allow this to happen? As a shrewd political observer once said: C’mon, man."