The Republicans are trading in new lies. Dana Milbank writes:

On Tuesday morning, one of the most senior and important Republican senators used one of the most prominent settings in official Washington to level one of the most serious allegations possible against the commander in chief. And his charge was based on an utter fabrication.

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used a hearing intended for sworn testimony from the secretary of state on the Afghanistan withdrawal to allege that President Biden is mentally incompetent.

Risch first devoted his opening statement to continuing the long-running Republican narrative. “We know for a fact the president of the United States is somewhat disadvantaged here in that someone is calling the shots. He can’t even speak without someone in the White House censoring it or signing off on it,” the senator claimed. “As recently as yesterday, in mid-sentence, he was cut off by someone in the White House who makes the decision that the president of the United States is not speaking correctly. … This is a puppeteer act.”

Risch insisted, again, that “it happened yesterday at the Interagency Fire Center. It was widely reported. … Are you telling this committee that this does not happen, that there is no one in the White House who pushes the button and cuts him off in mid-sentence?”

After yet another back-and-forth on the matter, [Antony] Blinken finally told the senator: “I really don’t know what you are referring to.”

There’s good reason for that: It didn’t happen.

It was a blatant lie -- like the lie that the election was stolen. An entire political party unashamedly sells lies. It now performs only one function. Like a very large cesspool, it manufactures and spreads excrement -- tons of it.

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