Former President Donald Trump says a lot of things on his social media site, many of them recycled bits from past speeches or interviews.
But since cocaine was found in an area of the White House trafficked by visitors, Trump has oddly and repeatedly made a new claim — that President Joe Biden has used or currently uses cocaine, even though there’s no evidence Biden, who’s held federal office almost continuously since 1973, has ever touched the stuff.
And Trump didn’t just make the claim once — he’s made it at least four times on his social media site, Truth Social, and at least once in an interview.
“We can’t have a president who’s on cocaine when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons and everything else,” Trump told right-wing commentator Wayne Allen Root in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Asked last week about Trump’s wild claim that Biden has used or is using cocaine, Republicans on Capitol Hill responded with a mixture of surprise and resignation, reminiscent of a dog owner having a particularly rough day training their pet to relieve itself outside.
“We can’t have a president who’s on cocaine when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons and everything else.”
- Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social
But none of them dared to say Trump was wrong.
“Who knows? I don’t know. That’s Trump being Trump,” Rep. Tim Burchett told HuffPost.
Rep. Nancy Mace suggested Trump was joking in his social media posts and that it can be hard to infer “tone” from text.
“Ask him. Ask President Trump on his stuff,” said Sen. Jim Lankford before scurrying to a weekly party lunch.
Sen. Rick Scott retreated to a line often used during Trump’s presidency, when he was on Twitter and Senate Republicans were asked about various outlandish things he had posted.
“I haven’t seen it,” said Scott. “I don’t have any knowledge of it.”
Scott also declined to comment on the propriety of a major party presidential candidate directly accusing a sitting president of being a drug user.
“I don’t have anything to say about that, or any knowledge,” said Sen. John Cornyn.
Given how often Trump has made the allegation, it’s unlikely he’s attempting to make a joke, as Mace speculated, unless, like a bad comedian, he’s repeating the joke until it lands. Trump does have a history of workshopping his schoolyard insults publicly, and reusing the ones he likes against his political rivals.
“Who knows? I don’t know. That’s Trump being Trump.”
- Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
He’s called out special prosecutor Jack Smith, who has been leading the federal investigations into Trump, for looking “like a crackhead” as well. And, seeing how well it stuck to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, he’s recycled “crooked” as an appellation for Biden, too.
“In my opinion, it’s Hunter and probably Joe,” Trump told Root, saying cocaine would explain what he said was Biden’s energetic appearance at the start of speeches compared to the end.
In his posts, Trump has repeatedly tried to tie the cocaine to President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, despite no evidence of either being involved. The Secret Service said they were unable to identify the culprit due to a lack of physical evidence, and closed the investigation last week.
“It is Crooked Joe and his wonderful son, Hunter? Release the findings, release the tapes. We can’t have a crackhead in charge of our nuclear arsenal!!!” he said in one post, referring to the possible existence of White House security camera footage.
“If they don’t release information, it means they destroyed the tapes & the cocaine was for use by Hunter, & probably Crooked Joe, in order to give this total disaster of a President a little life and energy!” he said in another.
It’s far from the first time Trump has appeared to try to become the centre of attention via posting. In 2020, Trump tweeted several times, without evidence, a conspiracy theory that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had possibly murdered an aide while Scarborough was in Congress from 1995 to 2001.
The conspiracy theory led then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say Trump and those who worked for him would share in historical ignominy.
“He comes in with doggy doo on his shoes and everybody who works with him has that on their shoes, too, for a very long time to come,” she said.
“Pick a message, right? Is it Sleepy Joe or is it Joe doing cocaine in the Oval? Which is it? Because those don’t go together.”
- Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.)
But unlike the TV-host-is-also-a-murderer posts, the Biden-is-a-crackhead posts have received little attention, either due to the small reach of Trump’s social media site, the sheer outlandishness of the claim, or both.
“No. 1, we know that’s not Joe Biden’s cocaine. The average person with any bit of sense knows that,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost who, at age 26, has grown up with social media as the first Gen Z Congress member.
“Pick a message, right? Is it Sleepy Joe or is it Joe doing cocaine in the Oval? Which is it? Because those don’t go together,” Frost said, referencing another of Trump’s derisive nicknames for Biden.
Frost said that after years of Trump and his social media eruptions, people are relieved that Biden is bringing “normalcy” to the White House.
“People are now getting used to what they deserve, a president who is not in thrall, in a constant scandal all the time,” he said.
Sen. Mark Warner had a shorter, simpler explanation.
“Mr. Trump has never been known for his veracity,” Warner said.