Get The Fainting Salts And Smelling Couches, Joe Biden Called Republicans 'Semi-Fascist!'

It's your Sunday show rundown!

As far back as mid-July, we've been saying the GOP's strategy of setting all its hopes on inflation and gas prices would be bad. Mitch McConnell himself recently went from measuring Chuck Schumer's office to see where he could install a new old-timey musket rack to lightly suggesting they might have screwed themselves.

So, what are Republicans to do 90-plus days away from an election? Let's take a look at the Sunday shows.

Scott Jennings on CNN's 'State Of The Union'

Normally we don't cover the panel discussions on the Sunday shows unless they say something that is so stupid that it can't be ignored. So here is CNN commentator Scott Jennings trying to insult President Joe Biden's student loan relief:

JENNINGS: I feel like we have reached the Joker phase of the Biden presidency. All we're lacking now is the face paint and a purple suit. He's riding a parade float down Pennsylvania Avenue, just tossing money out the window here. And it's totally lawless. It's completely unconstitutional. It completely is in violation of our norms.

"Unconstitutional" and "violation of norms?" Bless their hearts, we're worried about those now suddenly? Nothing between November 2016 and January 6, 2021, is that terrible, but student loan relief is? Sure you bet.

Of course, it's kind of strange when your objection to this famous scene from 1989's Batman was the tossing of money to a desperate crowd in Gotham City, and NOT the whole trying to kill the people with poison gas balloons thing.

You kinda missed the point of the scene, Scotty. But it's not a surprise yet another conservative commentator has missed the lesson in superhero story.

Then again, maybe Jennings is afraid of this version of The Joker:

Now onto the elected Republicans. Specifically VERY "serious" ones!

Gov. Chris Sununu, also on CNN's 'State Of The Union'

When Dana Bash asked the New Hampshire governor about President Biden calling out MAGA Republicans as "semi-fascist," he turned into a papa bear protecting some insurrectionist cubs. Weird how even "serious" Republicans do that.

SUNUNU: Horribly insulting. I mean, the fact that the president would go out and just insult half of America, because, effectively, half of America votes Republican, half of America ultimately votes Democrat. It swings a little bit one way or the other, but effectively call half of America semi-fascist, because he's trying to stir up controversy, he's trying to stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election, it's just -- it's horribly inappropriate. It's insulting. And people should be insulted by it. And he should apologize.

Seventy-four million Trump voters is not half of a country with 331 million people. Hell, that's not even half of the people who voted (46.9 percent) since Biden had seven million more votes (51.3 percent) in the 2020 election . It's even a smaller fraction if we count who Biden was specifically talking about, considering he still thinks there is such a thing as a decent mainstream GOP. 

But when Bash tried to ask him if he saw any elements of that in his party, Sununu deflected to both-sides-ism with a dash of concern trolling.

SUNUNU: Look, you can see elements of fascism and white supremacy all -- in America. Let's own that as Americans. There's no doubt. And we can say that all -- all the Democrats are communists, they're all ultra-socialist communists that just want to bring down our free capitalistic market. That's not true of Democrats either.

We'll return to this in just a moment, but let's take a quick look at another show.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan on CBS's 'Face The Nation'

Hogan was on with Major Garrett, to also discuss Biden's earth-shattering mean name-calling.

HOGAN: You know, I think it's that kind of divisive rhetoric on both sides that's really bad for America. And, you know, I've been talking about the toxic politics and when, if Republicans are calling Democrats, socialists and communists and we have the President United States calling Republicans fascist, I don't think it adds to the you know, the, the overall discussion, we all just talk about the differences we have on the issues and, and focus on the problems that most people in America want us to focus on.

I'm assuming Chris Sununu and Larry Hogan demanded an apology from Ted Cruz for these, then?

“The communists have always called their enemies “fascists.””

— Ted Cruz (@Ted Cruz) 1661658053 

“Big Government Socialists think they can spend your money better than you can.”

— Ted Cruz (@Ted Cruz) 1617763061 

Or Mitch McConnell? 

“For the first time in my memory, I actually agree with Nancy Pelosi: I am the grim reaper when it comes to stopping the Democrats' socialist agenda.”

— Leader McConnell (@Leader McConnell) 1560541062 

Since we don't have the space or time to attach them all, try this fun experiment: Go to ANY Republican's Twitter page and search for the words "communist" and "socialist" to see how many times they have used to insult ALL Democrats. (Hint: It's a lot).

Hogan tried to hedge his bets by also kinda agreeing with Biden, but only in self-congratulatory way.

GARRETT: Real quickly, do you see any strains of authoritarianism in the Republican Party?

HOGAN: Well, there's no question we see some- some signs of that. And I'm, you know, one of the ones speaking out.

Sununu and Hogan are just trying to establish a lane, similar to Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger , as " Good Republicans. " Problem is, when it comes to policies regarding the economy or national security or human rights or the environment, there isn't much difference between Sununu/Hogan and Donald Trump/Marjorie Taylor Greene. So, they resort to meaningless tone-policing.

It's made even sadder by the fact that charisma vacuums like Chris Sununu or Larry Hogan think they could ever be president.

Hulk Hogan stands a better chance at being President than Larry Hogan. And we are talking Hulk Hogan NOW , not 1990's Gremlins 2: The New Batch Hulk Hogan.

Have a week.

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