Tag: senility

Observers of the American presidency warn with increasing frequency that the office of the country’s chief executive has acquired power more befitting a monarchy than a republic with elected officials. But what if the person holding that office is a placeholder for aides who cocoon the president and who really make the decisions? That is, what if all that growing power is wielded by an unelected and relatively faceless circle of advisers? That brings us to the Biden administration which, in just one term, has powerfully reinforced the argument for making the presidency much less important.

“Presidents always have gatekeepers,” Annie Linskey, Rebecca Ballhaus, Emily Glazer, and Siobhan Hughes wrote last week for The Wall Street Journal. “But in Biden’s case, the walls around him were higher and the controls greater, according to Democratic lawmakers, donors and aides who worked for Biden and other administrations. There were limits over who Biden spoke with, limits on what they said to him and limits around the sources of information he consumed.”

In President Joe Biden’s day-to-day work, they added, several key aides to the elderly official “were often with the president as he traveled and stayed within earshot or eye distance….They would often repeat basic instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage.”

The New York Times, which has been protective of Biden’s tarnished reputation, conceded in a story by Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs that “time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day.” People who traveled with the president noted that he “maintained a light schedule at times and sometimes mumbled, making him hard to understand.”

None of this is especially surprising to the American people at this point. Even before Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, which forced him to surrender dreams of a second term, surveys found overwhelming majorities—86 percent in a February 2024 ABC News/Ipsos poll—thought he was too old to serve four more years in office. That followed special counsel Robert Hur’s decision not to prosecute Biden for illegally retaining classified materials because he “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Keep reading

Is President Joe Biden making any decisions anymore? Who knows? Probably not. Heck, it was debatable from day one whether he was the one actually in charge of his administration. Well, now he’s made it crystal clear that he’s utterly disconnected from reality.

According to White House insiders, Biden is reportedly lamenting his decision to to drop out of the presidential election, and—try not to laugh—he still believes he could have easily defeated Donald Trump had he stayed in the race. 

Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

[…]

The president stepped aside – to be replaced as his party’s nominee by the US vice-president, Kamala Harris – after mounting pressure from fellow Democrats, who cited polling evidence that appeared to show him heading for a near-certain election drubbing from Trump, who was seeking a historic return to the White House as the Republicans’ nominee.

Harris’s ascent to the top of the ticket led to a surge of enthusiasm and improved poll numbers but ultimately ended in a decisive electoral college and popular vote defeat.

While Biden and his aides have been careful not to blame Harris, they apparently believe the result would have been different if he had stood his ground, according to the Washington Post’s reporting.

Many Harris supporters dispute the belief that Biden could have won the election had he stayed in. They believe that Biden waited too long to withdraw, leaving Kamala with insufficient time to build an effective campaign.

Of course, they’re wrong, too. Trump’s strength in the 2024 was, for all intents and purposes, baked into the cake. The Harris-Walz campaign raised and spent $1 billion, but failed to win a single battleground state, highlighting the futility of their efforts. It really didn’t matter whether Biden ran or not, or had dropped out earlier; the Democratic Party brand was already in the toilet due to the failures of the Biden-Harris ticket.

Still, Biden’s perception of how the election would have played out is indeed a curious mix of denial and delusion.

In a “Pod Save America” episode last month, former Obama staffers Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor openly criticized Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign, called his decision to run again a “catastrophic mistake,” and revealed that Biden team’s internal polling showed Trump poised to win 400 electoral votes—a detail kept quiet while Biden’s camp pushed the narrative that he was the strongest candidate.

Keep reading

James O’Keefe confronted Henry Appel, the National Security Council advisor who was caught on OMG undercover video claiming Biden can’t finish a sentence.

On Monday, O’Keefe Media Group released undercover footage of a former spy and White House National Security Council advisor named Henry Appel giving more inside information about Biden’s cognitive decline and revealing worries among White House and National Security officials that they will face investigations from the incoming Trump administration or Congress.

“Well, here’s some tea. Joe Biden is like dead. He like can’t say a sentence,” Appel said of Biden’s obvious mental decline. “He’s like really progressed in his old age.” Appel continued, stating, “Everybody recognizes it,” and “I can’t believe it wasn’t a bigger scandal earlier.”

“He’ll be dead in a year,” he predicted.

Appel says that he and his colleagues are worried they may be criminally liable or investigated for something. “We’re kind of concerned about them coming after us… like with Congress.”

“I’ve gotta find a new job. I don’t know what the f*ck I’m going to do,” Appel said.

Keep reading