2024 campaign

On Monday, in the aftermath of Trump’s shooting, President Biden sat down in the White House with NBC’s Lester Holt for an "unedited" interview, which aired in the evening. The president successfully made it through without any major gaffes, appearing combative when questioned about his mental acuity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUSmk1SqEu8&ab_channel=NBCNews He started off a little shaky after Holt called out his incendiary language, in particular his remarks it was time to put Trump in the "bullseye." Biden suggested this was a mistake, claiming he meant “focus on him” and what he’s doing, “on his policies, the number of lies he told in the debate.” He was quick to bring up the "existential threat" Donald Trump presents.

The conventional wisdom is that the race for the presidency fundamentally changed with the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. That’s wrong. The failed attempt to kill Donald Trump didn’t change trends in this election; it reinforced them.   The shooting reinforced public images about four distinct issues.  Trump’s strength and determination;  Biden’s weakness, politically, physically and cognitively;  Trump’s lead in the battleground states he needs to win reelection; and  The failure of basic governmental institutions, such as the Secret Service, to do their job  The enduring image of the Saturday shooting is the photo of the former president as he leaves the stage.

The iconic images are already dominating the airwaves. Trump, blood running down his face from a bullet that hit his right ear, urges the Secret Service detail to wait as they try to usher him off the stage at his rally in Pennsylvania. He raises a fist to the crowd and tells them, “Fight. Fight. Fight.” Despite likely being a different head-tilt or a gust of wind away from losing his life, the former president’s instinct was to reassure his supporters that he was OK and that he was going to stay in the fight. Compare this reaction to the one displayed by our current president, Joe Biden. It took President Biden more than an hour and a half to release a short statement about the incident: I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania.

Days after a radio host admitted to using the Biden campaign’s pre-selected questions in her post-debate interview with the president, another "journalist" committed credibility hari-kari. Earl Ingram, the host of Wisconsin-based radio show Civic Media, confessed to editing an interview with Joe Biden... at the request of the president’s campaign, naturally.  Ingram conducted the interview with Biden on July 3, following his disastrous performance in the presidential debate on June 27, airing the interview a day later.   The Biden campaign reportedly called the radio station right after the interview was recorded asking for two edits to be made. Civic Media did not specify who exactly made the report.

If you were expecting a Benjamin Button-style de-aging of President Joe Biden at tonight's NATO press conference after he recovered from the cold and jet lag he claims led to his disastrous debate performance, well... Biden is still Biden. His voice still sounds old and whispery. That being said, when he finally did step onto the press conference stage, he had an air of confidence that was not present during the debate two weeks ago. There were quite a few complications leading up to actually starting the press conference. The White House originally scheduled it for 5:30, but bumped it back to 6:30. The streaming started then, but the conference didn’t actually begin until almost an entire hour after 6:30.

For years now Republicans have voiced some version of the same opinion: "If only Donald Trump could get out of his own way..." things would be going much better for them. In the DC swampland, this usually was followed with some comment about his tweets and personal feuds. Outside, if it came from older voters, it was usually expressed as "I wish he'd just put down the phone sometimes." And if it came from middle-aged supporters, it was more than once expressed to me that Trump just needs to "stop tripping on his own dick."  The attitude is ubiquitous among some portions of the president's base: they just think he'd be better off if he could focus and not give Democrats so much material.

The American media is in a credibility crisis following President Biden’s car-crash debate performance last week. How is it that so many reporters and pundits failed to reveal the depth of the commander-in-chief’s decline? Public trust in the media is in the basement — but it’s been tailing off since 2008, when the legacy media landscape in the United States fundamentally shifted.   Before 2008, the legacy media — while always leaning to the political left — had maintained a patina of objectivity. When Bill Clinton lied to the American people about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, they belatedly pounced. When John Kerry’s campaign began to crater, they reluctantly covered it. They were, to be sure, oriented against Republican candidates and policies.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.  “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”  Those were Hemingway’s words in 1926's The Sun Also Rises.   A century later, they apply to Joe Biden, not financially but politically. For him, the sun is not rising. It’s setting.   “Gradually and then suddenly” is the story of Joe Biden’s physical and cognitive decline. “Gradually and then suddenly” is how his army of enablers in the media, the Democratic Party and the donor base abandoned his defense.

After Thursday’s disastrous excuse for a presidential debate, New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that Joe Biden “has no business running for reelection.” Columnist Nicolas Kristof also said he hopes Biden “reviews his debate performance” and “withdraws from the race.” Johanna Maska, a Democratic consultant and former Barack Obama aide, wrote on X: “We cannot do this, Democrats. Joe Biden can’t put a sentence together.” Meanwhile, numerous other Democratic insiders and donors are in a state of panic. So if President Biden won’t make it to November, then who could step up?