Speaking on Fox News, Stephen Miller, who previously served as one of former President Donald Trump's senior advisers, claimed that President Joe Biden is part of an "insidious" conspiracy after Biden repeated a caller's "Let's go Brandon!" taunt.
Miller suggested that Biden is being "controlled by his staff and his aides," continuing the trend among conservative critics of elevating conpiracies about the President's mental health.
Miller's comments come shortly after Jared Schmeck, the man who wished President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden a merry Christmas and added "Let's go Brandon!" at the end of a live streamed Santa tracker call, claimed he meant "no disrespect" to the President despite using a derogatory phrase that's become a favorite in conservative circles.
Schmeck made national headlines for the stunt, which took place as the Bidens took calls to the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa Tracker, which lets families watch Santa Claus travel the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on Christmas Eve.
You can hear what Miller said in the video below.
Miller said:
"Here's my theory and I'm being completely forthright when I say this. I believe that Joe Biden is controlled by his staff and his aides. And not just senior staff. I think mid-level aides in the White House."
"You know, the recent incident that people made a great deal of fun about -- well, they should have -- where Joe Biden said, 'Let's go Brandon' during Christmas to me, reveals something much more insidious, which is that he doesn't know about the 'Let's Go Brandon' meme because he doesn't consume any of his own information."
"He's completely sheltered and controlled by his staff."
Miller went on to suggest that Biden's mental state pales in comparison to that of former President Trump and that Biden's staff using him to their advantage:
"[Trump would] bring us into the Oval and say, 'I read this report, I read this report, I read this report, I saw this, I saw this, I saw this, I want reaction, I want analysis. It's completely the opposite with Biden."
"He's totally shaped and controlled by staff and has no inputs but what they give him. So they see him, his own staff sees him as a vessel to implement these AOC-style, soft-on-crime, no-borders, massive-taxation, massive-welfare, no-American-energy policies."
"He's their vessel and we're all suffering as a result."
The "Let's go Brandon!" chant has been used by conservatives to denigrate President Joe Biden. It began in October after an anti-Biden rap song began making the rounds, eventually rising to the top of the iTunes hip-hop chart.
The song, entitled "Let's Go Brandon," is performed by rapper Loza Alexander and went viral on TikTok.
It was inspired by the "Let's go Brandon!" meme that has taken social media by storm since NBC's Kelli Stavast interviewed NASCAR driver Brandon Brown after he came in first place at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway in early October.
The interview went viral because the crowd could be heard chanting "F*** Joe Biden" in the background, which Stavast misheard as "Let's go Brandon!"
The moment, and the use of the chant since, is widely viewed as an example of the heightened political polarization in American politics as the Biden administration continues to work on bridging the gaps in a stalled legislature in an effort to codify its social and economic agenda.
President Biden has given every indication that he is, despite Miller's claims, aware of the meaning behind the "Let's go Brandon!"
In fact, it's safe to say that the President appears to have a sense of humor about it, as when he met with a man named Brandon to drum up support for his administration's "Build Back Better" intiative.
Although neither the President nor his social media and PR team confirmed that Biden was slyly putting divisive rhetoric to sleep, he received praise from social media users for subverting the joke.
Many have criticized Miller for his remarks and have defended Biden's response.
Joe Biden, obsessed with things like the pandemic, the economy, civil rights, labor rights, and environmental responsibilities, doesn't seem to think about the latest Republican memes at all! Is such a man fit to be president?https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Condemn That Shit ASAP (@Condemn That Shit ASAP) 1640625503
No, dumbass, that's his way of saying "fuck off, and let the adults get back to work."https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— The Barking Music Teacher (@The Barking Music Teacher) 1640660057
Update: You actually WANT a president who isn't aware of every stupid meme about himself on Twitter.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Joe Remi (@Joe Remi) 1640575461
Miller, the longest serving (and arguably most influential) advisor to a president who knew virtually nothing about politics when he took office, thinks the current President, who's been working in politics longer than Miller has been alive, is just a puppet of his advisors.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Seth Cotlar (@Seth Cotlar) 1640577818
Wow POTUS is so busy doing his real job that he\u2019s not paying attention to the dumbest internet meme and that is totally a mark of incompetency because we elected him to be king of YouTubehttps://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Elizabeth Spiers (@Elizabeth Spiers) 1640581565
Biden is an adult.\nNot a narcissist like Miller.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Charlie Harris (@Charlie Harris) 1640601678
The entire Trump administration continues their projection of facts.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Mark Stern (@Mark Stern) 1640611837
The thing that keeps me going in these difficult times is knowing that Stephen Miller will never have a restaurant meal without someone else\u2019s spit in it.https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Curtis Stigers (@Curtis Stigers) 1640632323
"I cannot own Joe Biden, therefore he must be the problem" is a weird take.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— Adam J Schmidt (@Adam J Schmidt) 1640644887
The last guy thought you needed ID to buy cereal.https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1475283847449399298\u00a0\u2026— The Hoarse Whisperer (@The Hoarse Whisperer) 1640650783
The suggestion that President Biden is "mentally frail" has become a favorite talking point in conservative circles.
However, claims Biden has a cognitive impairment are unfounded
.In September 2020, ABC News reported the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withheld intelligence warning of Russian disinformation attacking Biden to promote "allegations about poor mental health."
The intelligence bulletin, titled "Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election," said American intelligence determined Russian operatives are sowing disinformation to convince the American electorate Biden has dementia and would be unfit to serve in office.
But the fact that the bulletin has discredited allegations about Biden's mental health has not stopped Fox News anchors from claiming that Biden is very much at the mercy of his handlers, or even his wife.
In August, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy claimed that Dr. Jill Biden, the First Lady was aware of President Biden's "frail" mental health yet allowed him to assume office anyway.
She went on to claim that the First Lady was responsible for the agreement to withdraw from Afghanistan and the release of thousands of Taliban leaders from prison, which were, in fact, under the administration of former President Trump.
