A Trump official at a recent hearing gave an answer that had nothing to do with the question asked, offering instead, “Biden…” A senator cut the official off immediately.
Trump counselor Peter Navarro , U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently blamed Joe Biden for current high beef prices. Bessent also blamed Biden for Spirit Airlines’ collapse, even though Spirit blamed it on high gas prices due to Donald Trump’s war with Iran. And it goes on and on.
Welcome to 21st century America, which is experiencing a massive outbreak of political Tourette syndrome.
People who have Tourette syndrome have involuntary tics. In popular culture, Tourette syndrome was defined by a November 2002 episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” where Larry David and several others open a new restaurant whose talented new chef’s tics are insults and uncontrollable swearing. On opening night the chef loudly swears and David, in an act of solidarity, swears to show customers it’s OK, it’s merely part of an unusual dining experience. So all the customers gleefully swear.
All of this started with Donald Trump. By blaming Biden constantly Trump has made it acceptable for administration officials and Republicans to immediately blame current ills on the former president.
There’s a long tradition of presidents criticizing their predecessors, but historically it’s been framed as disagreement over judgment, not an attempt to rewrite reality. No president has attacked his predecessor like Donald Trump.
The unwritten rule was politics could be sharp, even bruising, but tethered to this reality. What’s different now is the willingness to shift blame by challenging the facts themselves, turning what used to be arguments over policy into arguments over truth. Presidents could blast those who came before them. Donald Trump’s attacks are deeply personal and come with mind-boggling frequency.
A New York Times analysis found Trump mentioned Biden or his administration at least 316 times during the first 50 days of his second term, mostly to blame him for various issues. Reports indicate Trump has mentioned Biden on average more than six times a day since taking office in January 2025. In a single address to Congress in March 2025, Trump referenced Biden at least 16 times. During a cabinet meeting in December 2025, he mentioned Biden more than 30 times.
Meanwhile, no president has lied as much as Trump. According to a ` Washington Post data base, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four years in office. The count is ongoing for his second term, but it’s likely surpass his first term. A New York Times analysis found in the first 10 months of his second term, Trump told nearly six times as many falsehoods as Barack Obama did during his entire eight-year presidency.
Journalist Carl Bernstein said “Trump’s lies are not just frequent, they’re a defining characteristic of his presidency.” Trump critic George Conway said Trump lies “even when the truth would serve him better.”
They say George Washington couldn’t tell a lie. If Trump chopped down a cherry tree and someone asked him who chopped it down, he’d say Biden. And then insist the tree actually fell during the Obama administration.
Meanwhile, on the judicial front, Delaware Senator Chris Coons couldn’t get some Trump nominees to say Biden won the 2020 election. Coons asked John Marck, nominee for the U.S. District of Texas, about the 22nd amendment, which bars presidents from a third term. Marck declined to answer, describing it as a “hypothetical” and saying he’d need to “review’ the constitution’s wording” first. The other three judicial nominees also declined to answer.
So here we are – where even basic facts have become optional, and people in positions of authority can’t quite bring themselves to say what happened or what the rules are. Because once “Yeah, but Biden” becomes the standard reply, the standard itself quietly vanishes. And with it goes accountability.
Copyright 2026 Joe Gandelman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.