Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) provided "Blaze News Tonight" Thursday with some damning insights into the state of play in Washington, D.C., and into how his Democratic peers are handling President Joe Biden's decrepitude and political collapse. Lee indicated the situation across the aisle has devolved into a truly pitiable state.

Biden has provided ample evidence in recent years that he is not immune to the ravages of time. The 81-year-old Democrat has manifested various signs of cognitive decline in public — confusing countries and family members; speaking to the dead; falling; repeating himself; slurring his words; forgetting critical life events; and relying upon large-printed instructions to execute basic tasks.

As recently as last month, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media were still dutifully painting Biden as mentally fit and competent, deriding critics as conspiracy theorists, partisans, and cranks, and even suggesting that raw footage evidencing Biden's decline were "deepfakes."

However, Biden's presidential debate with President Donald Trump forced a paradigm shift in the mainstream — or at the very least left the American public asking enough questions that the political establishment had to begin seriously considering answers. Biden has not made his defense any easier in recent days by mistaking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russian President Vladimir Putin at Thursday's NATO press conference, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump," or relying upon Jill Biden and former President Barack Obama to lead him around.

When pressed by "Blaze News Tonight" co-host Jill Savage about what his Democratic colleagues were saying about Joe Biden, Lee said, "They are referring behind closed doors to this situation and to conversations that they've apparently had to have as a conference within the last hour or two as the 'Weekend at Bernie's' chat."

'A whole lot of them and a whole lot of people in the media should not pretend to be surprised here.'

In the 1989 comedy movie "Weekend at Bernie's," a pair of lowly insurance company employees are invited to their CEO's beach home under false pretenses. Rather than a warm reception, they are greeted instead by the cold, dead body of their boss, Bernie Lomax. For fear of being tied to Bernie Lomax's demise and desiring to live it up in the beach house at the dead man's expense, the duo do their best to make it seem as though Lomax is still alive, manipulating and lugging around his body. The deception is made easier by the fact that many others are blinded by their own desires to similarly exploit the dead man's affluence and amenities.

"This is the reality in which they're swimming," said Lee. "I don't envy them. And yet we do have to remember that — I don't want to say all of them — but a whole lot of them and a whole lot of people in the media should not pretend to be surprised here."

"I think most of us, even those of us who are not Democrats, have seen this for a long time," continued the senator from Utah. "We've seen the president of the United States shaking hands with people who are not there or at least we can't see them. We've seen him getting lost between the helicopter and the residence at the White House. We've seen all sorts of things that don't make sense."

'They're looking for an off-ramp.'

Lee emphasized that there have long been far too many signs of Biden's decline for Democrats now to convincingly express shock.

"I think they have finally started to accept the fact that they've pushed it so far they can't take it any further," said Lee. "They're looking for an off-ramp. What I don't know is where it's going to go and whether that off-ramp is going to be any better or any worse for their chances."

Even if Biden ultimately caves to the demands of Democratic donors and lawmakers to exit the race, his most-discussed potential replacement appears similarly fated to lose.

A YouGov poll conducted days after the Trump-Biden debate suggested that two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would approve of Kamala Harris becoming the presidential nominee. However, a post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that Harris, whose approval rating is south of 38% and disapproval rating sits around 50%, still trailed Trump by one percentage point. Five Thirty Eight indicated that when factoring in economic and political issues, Biden still stands a better chance against Trump in terms of picking up swing states and winning the Electoral College than Harris by a 17-point margin.

While the broader conversation about Biden has largely dealt with the man himself, Lee steered it back to the issues with his policies.

"Bottom line is all of this ultimately focuses on the fact that Joe Biden's policies have been an unmitigated disaster. They have inflicted torture on the American people. They have made everything more expensive. The average family has to shell out at a minimum $1,300 a month every single month just to live, just to buy groceries and gas, and to pay for their housing," said Lee. "That's not fair, but this is the predictable, foreseeable, and in fact foreseen result of his failed policies."

"So no matter where they run, they cannot hide from the failed progressive Democrat policies that have put us in this position," added Lee. "And that's really what's on trial, more than Joe Biden's dementia."

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