Is Joe Biden OK?

Joe Biden is at it again, and by “it,” we mean making word salad in public.

Biden spoke to Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV about Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All plan, arguing that Biden’s plan to “rebuild” Obamacare with the public option will cover all Americans and Sanders’s won’t. The veracity of that statement aside—even with the public option and expanded subsidies for lower and middle income Americans, Biden’s plan leaves gaps in coverage and affordability—he got lost a couple times during the interview:

Obviously, one sluggish interview doesn’t mean anything, but this keeps happening, so much so that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how 2020 Biden will be able to keep up with Donald Trump’s admittedly biting barbs on a debate stage. I am genuinely starting to think this is less a mental decline and more a sign that Biden’s heart isn’t in this—it feels like he’s running just because the Democratic party bosses keep telling him to, feeding him the line we’re all getting, that he’s truly the One Great Hope against Trump. Mostly, as Hamilton Nolan pointed out last week, Biden seems burned out and tired.