On the menu today: Do you realize this country came within an inch of not having Donald Trump or Joe Biden on the ballot in November?
With a Released Statement, the Invisible President Disappears
He actually did it. Joe Biden actually pulled an LBJ and quit his pursuit of a second term.
I’m going to put down a marker: Joe Biden’s in much, much rougher shape — physically and mentally — than anyone at the White House has been willing to admit. The evidence pointing towards this isn’t just the terrible debate — you know, the historically early debate that he and his team proposed. (“Make my day, pal!”)
And it’s not just that we didn’t see a genuinely, indisputably good performance from Biden after the debate, either, just variations of “marginally less bad.” He told George Stephanopoulos he didn’t think he watched the debate, claimed Trump was shouting during his answers, and falsely claimed he “did ten major events in a row, including until 2:00 in the morning after the debate.” In his NATO summit press conference, Biden claimed he was doing “not bad” in fundraising since the debate when actually his fundraising numbers had dropped like a stone, mixed up Trump and Harris, and insisted that no poll suggested he had no shot at beating Trump.
The self-pitying irritability displayed in the Lester Holt interview, his inability to remember the name of his own secretary of defense in his interview with BET — it all reaffirmed that there was no better, sharper, less doddering version of Joe Biden waiting to emerge from behind the curtain.
And most of these appearances were taped between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. — i.e., Biden in his best hours. What we were seeing was the good Joe Biden. Imagine what he’s like when he’s groggy in the morning or tired in the evenings.
But one final factor really makes me think that Biden is in a condition where his staff believes he must not be seen by the American public. It’s that he made an announcement that ranks among the most important and consequential statements from a president in history in a letter posted on Twitter/X.
He didn’t do it on camera. We didn’t hear his voice. We didn’t see him at all on Sunday. As of this writing, Biden hasn’t been seen Monday, and is not scheduled to make any appearances today. Biden’s last public event was a radio interview with Univision at 12:15 local time in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Don’t blame Covid. About an hour before the announcement, the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, issued an update:
President Biden completed his eighth dose of PAXLOVID this morning. His symptoms have improved significantly. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. . . .
The President continues to tolerate treatment without any difficulty and will continue PAXLOVID as planned. He continues to perform all of his presidential duties.
“He continues to perform all of his presidential duties” . . . except for addressing the country when he’s announcing he’s not running for reelection.
Then there was the ominous statement from Frank Biden, the president’s younger brother, who told CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes, “I’m incredibly proud of my brother. Selfishly, I will have him back to enjoy whatever time we have left. He is a genuine hero.”
“Whatever time we have left”?
Cordes asked the president’s brother whether he felt the president’s overall health and vitality played a role in the decision, and he answered, “In my humble opinion, absolutely.”
The message from the White House is that Biden’s health is fine, and simultaneously that no, no one is allowed to see him, even though he’s announcing a complete reversal on his position for the past three years. Oh, and Politico reported that White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, rather than Biden himself, informed the cabinet of the decision.
Oh, and I remind you that when special counsel Robert Hur’s report came out, concluding that Biden would likely present himself to a jury as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Vice President Kamala Harris responded:
And what I saw of that report last night, I believe, is — as a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate.
October 7th, Israel experienced a horrific attack. And I will tell you, we got the calls, the President and myself, in the hours after that occurred. It was an intense moment for the Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America. And I was in almost every meeting with the President in the hours and days that followed.
He was in front of it all, coordinating and directing leaders who are in charge of America’s national security — not to mention our allies around the globe — for days, and up until now, months.
So, the way that the President’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and, clearly, politically motivated — gratuitous.
The transcript of the Hur interview suggests otherwise. Harris lied. Everyone around Biden lied.
The Era of the PiNO — the President in Name Only
Since at least the Afghanistan debacle, those of us paying attention have noticed that Biden’s age meant he couldn’t perform his duties like a normal president would. He made considerably fewer public appearances, appeared at few early morning or late-night events, took more time to recuperate from travel, conducted fewer interviews and press conferences, etc.
Normal presidents don’t skip Super Bowl interviews. Normal presidents don’t go nine months without a cabinet meeting. Normal presidents don’t spend almost every weekend at their beach house in Delaware, and normal presidents don’t have to use a teleprompter when making remarks to donors at closed-door fundraisers.
Olivia Nuzzi reported, “Longtime friends of the Biden family, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, were shocked to find that the president did not remember their names.” No serious person can contend that Biden’s memory isn’t failing him, and it is impossible to believe that Biden recalls what he is told in his daily intelligence briefings or in his discussions with his advisers.
This is one of many reasons that, as the NR editors declare, Joe Biden should resign the presidency. He can’t do the job anymore. We have had a not-president for a while, and unless Biden resigns the office, we will have a not-president until January 20. He’s a PiNO — President in Name Only.
It was never a good idea to have an octogenarian president*, and Biden should have let Democrats have a real 2024 primary.
Biden’s decision to withdraw does tell us a few things. At the NATO summit press conference, eleven days and what feels like a lifetime ago:
Q: If your team came back and showed you data that she [Harris] would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?
THE PRESIDENT: No, unless they came back and said, “There’s no way you can win.” Me. No one is saying that. No poll says that.
We can conclude that Biden’s team came to him with polls indicating there is no way he can win, and that there was no plausible scenario where he would change the electorate’s mind about him. Biden’s spin on the polls, doubting their accuracy, was all self-serving nonsense.
For several weeks, you’ve heard people insisting that the polls for Biden didn’t look that bad and that the race was “essentially tied.” That was false, an effort to mislead you, and to save sagging Democratic morale. Clearly, Biden’s campaign didn’t put any stock in the 538 model that said he still had a 50–50 shot at winning.
In Their Desperate Hour, Democrats Turn to Harris
Sunday afternoon, Democratic Party officials coalesced around Kamala Harris like iron filings gravitating to a magnet.
In moving from Biden to Harris, Democrats have traded a nominee with catastrophic problems for one with merely bad ones. (Kamala Harris’s approval rating in the 538 aggregate is 38.6 percent, and Biden’s is 38.5 percent.)
Harris has been a colossal disappointment to everyone who believed that the first woman vice president would be a heroic giant on the American political stage. Some Democrats intermittently insist that the public hasn’t seen “the real Kamala Harris,” which raises the questions of where this real Kamala Harris is, who’s not letting the public see the real Kamala Harris, and who it is who keeps getting up on stage, giving Hallmark-card-haiku speeches and calling herself “Kamala Harris.”
The similarities between her and the fictional vice president Selina Meyer from Veep are unnervingly funny.
Beyond that, the laugh, her reliance on stock phrases like, “what can be, unburdened by what has been,” the constant vibe that she’s giving a book report on a book she didn’t read — there’s a nervousness or insecurity to Harris. She always seems like she’s bluffing.
In a stretch from 1990 to 2016, Harris went from deputy district attorney to assistant district attorney to San Francisco DA to California attorney general to U.S. senator. She never lost an election, although she did come in second to qualify for a runoff once. She had the magic touch; she knew, professionally and instinctively, what it took to win votes in a California electorate.
And then, in late July 2019, Tulsi Gabbard gutted her like a fish in a Democratic presidential debate, pointing out some glaring hypocrisies in her record as a prosecutor, and Harris has always seemed a little off-step ever since. In the next few months, as her presidential campaign unraveled, she just didn’t know what to do. This isn’t me saying that, this is her own campaign staffers: “Many of her own advisers are now pointing a finger directly at Ms. Harris. In interviews several of them criticized her for going on the offensive against rivals, only to retreat, and for not firmly choosing a side in the party’s ideological feud between liberals and moderates.”
As I wrote in November 2021, “Harris’s presidential campaign ran into trouble in part because of flip-flopping on big issues — abolishing ICE, sanctuary cities, Medicare for All, independent probes of police shootings, banning fracking. Flip-flopping on issues is ultimately a reflection of a political leader who isn’t entirely certain what he or she wants.”
When she withdrew from the presidential race, our Charlie Cooke concluded, “Everything that is wrong with American politics is summed up in Kamala Harris. She’s a weather vane. She’s dishonest. She’s a coward. She’s condescending. And she’s a phony. She’s the answer to no useful or virtuous question.”
Kamala Harris wants to be popular and great, and her first instinct is to push the country further to the left.
In light of all that, you may be wondering whether she’s really an upgrade over Biden as the nominee. But Harris can, you know, campaign. She can work long hours, doesn’t get exhausted by travel, doesn’t need a teleprompter, and can work weekends. People may think she’s loopy, but no one thinks she’s senile. For a while now, it’s been clear that she’s no riskier than sticking with Biden. Harris helps Democrats shake off the doldrums of having to pretend Biden is just fine, probably fires up progressives a bit more, will pound the drum on abortion, and creates some excitement and drama about whom she will pick as her running mate. It’s not a great plan, but it beats “ridin’ with Biden.”
*Note that Donald Trump — who admittedly has shown considerably more energy and stamina – will turn 80 on June 14, 2026.
ADDENDUM: It’s another National Review Day with the great Megyn Kelly! Charlie Cooke and I are scheduled to appear during the first 90 minutes or so of her program this afternoon.