joe biden Archives

Wednesday

July 24, 2024

Inside Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress

Today Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first world leader to address a joint session of Congress four times, surpassing the previous record jointly held by him and Winston Churchill. And the anti-Israel protesters, not unlike the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, drastically inflated their numbers ahead of Wednesday’s proceedings. Despite concern that more than 10,000 anti-Israel protesters would descend on the nation’s capital, only a small group that carried Hamas flags and shut down multiple streets showed up. That’s not to say there was no drama, however. There was “absolute chaos” in the streets of the capital by the protesters who did show, with some activists pepper-sprayed and arrested by the Capitol Police.

Stephen L. Miller

The media’s flip to Harris was predictable

This time last week, America’s media was excruciatingly examining Joe Biden’s current health condition and fading campaign to Donald Trump, with leaks coming from White House and campaign Zoom calls. George Clooney, after hosting a Biden fundraiser, called for Biden to withdraw in the pages of the New York Times. Reports of a mysterious Covid diagnosis followed. But when Biden’s Twitter/X account posted his withdrawal letter on Sunday, the story instantly turned to Vice President Kamala Harris, a presumptive nominee in-waiting who has received more New York Times fluff profiles than she has primary votes (that number is zero, by the way). The media has dug a hole in the woods for Joe Biden.

Tuesday

July 23, 2024

Roger Kimball

The Democrats do not care a whit about democracy

The events of the last few days have made incontrovertible something that candid observers have known for some time now: that the word “democracy” in the maw of Democrats bears the same relation to really existing democracy that the Russian word “Pravda” bore to really existing truth in the Soviet era. If you look it up, you’ll see that “Pravda” means “truth.” At least, that’s what the dictionary says it means. But anyone on the ground, experiencing the full-court press of Soviet disinformation knew that the newspaper Pravda deployed the word “truth” only to undermine it. It was necessary to pay lip service to the charade.

Vice President new car smell kamala harris

Cockburn

After ditching their senior, Democrats now think Trump is too old

After being gaslit into believing President Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities were up to par, some are licking their wounds by questioning the mental fitness and age of former president Donald Trump. Now that Biden is out of the race, Donald Trump is the oldest presidential nominee in US history. “Trump, a seventy-eight-year-old with a history of heart disease and obesity, according to experts, has not shared any updated bloodwork results or other specific information during this campaign to help experts assess his ongoing medical risks,” Cockburn read Monday in the Washington Post. Think of it — an obese president! Cue the fat shamers.

Teresa Mull

Secret Service director resigns after admitting agency ‘fell short’ during Trump assassination attempt

US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, the person charged with ensuring Donald Trump’s safety and that of everyone at the president’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has resigned after admitting in a letter the agency “fell short” on the day fireman Corey Comperatore lost his life and Trump was centimeters away from losing his at the hands of shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks. Cheatle, whom the New York Post reports “landed her role thanks largely to a close relationship with First Lady Jill Biden,” was eviscerated Monday by the House Oversight Committee.

Monday

July 22, 2024

Grace Curley

Kamala becomes presumptive nominee… over Zoom

Tonight on a series of Zoom calls, a majority of DNC delegates endorsed Kamala Harris, helping her secure the required number to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. The lesson? Destroying democracy is bad, unless it's done over a video call. In which case, it’s totally fine. Earlier, at the now-Harris campaign headquarters in Delaware, Kamala read from a teleprompter before making an awkward phone call to Joe Biden. I was waiting for the part in the movie when the record scratches, the frame freezes and then the narrator Harris says, “Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.” The fifty-nine-year-old’s haphazard road to the general election is the best scenario she could have hoped for given her shortcomings.

The Spectator

Kamala’s coronation doesn’t help the Democrats

Does anyone else feel like an entire year has happened in the last week? Last Monday, former president Donald Trump arrived at the Republican National Convention after being a quarter-of-an-inch away from assassination (and losing part of his ear in the process), Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump was thrown out by a federal judge, President Joe Biden caught Covid and, finally, yesterday Biden announced that he is not running for re-election and endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris to be the new nominee. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Today’s edition of the DC Diary includes multiple items that will hopefully help you feel more prepared for what may come next.

Freddy Gray

Biden backs out: can anything stop Kamala Harris?

From our UK edition

19 min listen

What happens after Joe Biden? The President has announced that he won’t run for re-election. Biden has endorsed Kamala Harris, his Vice President, to be the new Democratic nominee. Can she convince Democratic voters, and the rest of the US? The Spectator’s Freddy Gray and Kate Andrews are joined by Tim Stanley, columnist for the Telegraph. This episode was originally broadcast on SpectatorTV.

Christopher Sandford

Biden and Nixon: presidential history is repeating itself

One of the advantages of not having been born yesterday is the ability to recognize certain trends of the news cycle when they come around again. Am I alone in thinking that every major American political manifesto since about 1848 has made a promise of reducing the taxation burden on its hardworking citizens, for example? Or that for Brits, like me, of a certain age (sixty-eight), our whole lives have been spent in the shadow of a stale and still unresolved debate about the nation’s place in Europe? More recently, I was struck by a sense of déjà vu all over again when comparing the final meltdown in Joe Biden’s White House to the events preceding Richard Nixon’s departure from office fifty years ago. The case for presidential history repeating itself isn’t hard to make.

Freddy Gray

Joe Biden’s legacy is one of failure

From our UK edition

He resisted as they tried to force him away. He showed his defiance. Then, after a struggle, he gave in and was removed. That could be a description of the near-assassination of Donald Trump last weekend. Or the words might equally apply to Joe Biden’s experience since his abysmal debate performance last month. There’s a curiously asymmetrical relationship between the two old men now. Whereas Donald Trump, 78, survived his brush with death, Joe Biden’s political career died on that debate stage in Atlanta, Georgia. He staggered on for almost a month but, as leading Democrats queued up to tell him to go, his position was untenable.

Sunday

July 21, 2024

Jacob Heilbrunn

Republicans shouldn’t underestimate Kamala Harris

From our UK edition

Joe Biden has bowed to the inevitable in withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Only now has the presidential race become interesting as the 59-year-old Harris, who is more than likely to receive the Democratic nomination, prepares to face off against Donald Trump. Suddenly the Republican candidate has become the old codger while the probable Democratic one represents generational change. Trump, you could even say, has become yesterday’s news. This is why Republicans would be wise not to underestimate Harris, a former federal prosecutor and California senator whose early years as Vice President were marked, among other things, by public scrutiny of her staff shakeups. But that scrutiny appears to have toughened her up.

Roger Kimball

Biden ushers in more uncertainty by stepping aside

It’s odd how things that have been widely predicted and even widely anticipated can nevertheless occur with an emotional thunderclap. I suppose death would qualify as an example. Joe Biden’s announcement on X earlier today that he would not be seeking reelection certainly does. The announcement had its curious aspects. For one thing, it came from his personal account, not the account of POTUS. Indeed, for a moment that made me wonder whether it was for real. A glance at the internet assured me that it was. Most of the letter is political thru-text.

Ben Domenech

Biden’s media sycophants are the biggest losers of him stepping aside

The speed at which politics moves in 2024 is enough to give the American citizenry a massive case of whiplash. It was just over three weeks ago that Joe Biden took the stage in a CNN debate that left the nation and the world shocked at his incapacity — leading to a massive freakout in the media, the donors and the Democratic base. But in the time since, it appeared the president, his inner circle and his family had dug in, insisting against all efforts to dislodge him that the president intended to continue to run and win in November. The mood among Democratic circles was dejected, the attitude among the Donald Trump campaign ebullient — and that was before a failed assassination attempt just a week ago, a successful convention and the naming of J.D.

Juan P. Villasmil

Time for Republicans to run as if they could lose

It’s Joever. The president of the United States has announced that he is out of the race and thrown his support behind “Coconut Tree” Kamala Harris. On its face, this may sound like good news for overly confident Republican strategists. Harris may not be fossilized, but she still shares responsibility for her administration’s failures. Polls show that she is roughly as popular as Biden. Still, in electoral politics, overconfidence is a vice: Republicans should start talking and acting as if they can lose. One of Trump’s greatest strengths is his ability to depict wins. “We’re gonna win so much that you are gonna get tired of winning,” he loves to tell his audience.

US President Joe Biden waves on stage (Photo by KENT NISHIMURA/AFP via Getty Images)

Amber Duke

Biden has ended his reelection bid. What comes next?

President Joe Biden finally announced Sunday that he would not seek reelection weeks after a disastrous debate performance against former president Donald Trump that laid bare Biden’s physical and mental decline. As most things in life do, Biden’s exit from the presidential race happened slowly and then all at once. A few Democratic pundits and relatively small-time elected officials expressed grave concerns about Biden’s ability to carry on immediately following the debate, but it took weeks longer for top Biden allies — such as former speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Obamas and the Clintons — to privately reason with and publicly leak damaging information about their ol’ buddy Joe. This outcome was inevitable. Post-debate, the genie could not be put back in the bottle.

Friday

July 19, 2024

The Spectator

RNC ends on a high note

The Republican National Committee’s memorable four-day convention came to an end in Milwaukee last night. With an unusual performance from Kid Rock, a shirt-ripping Hulk Hogan and dozens of Trump-humanizing speeches, the RNC managed to throw a party that drew some attention, some laughs and certainly some tears — from worried Democratic strategists and enamored Trump-fans alike.It was, as The Spectator’s James Heale put it, “the first convention in twenty years where polls suggest the Republicans are on course to win the White House, producing an air of expectation and excitement.

Ben Domenech

Trump unites his party as Biden falls apart

Welcome to Thunderdome. It is an incredible circumstance that we face today. Just a week ago, it seemed that Donald Trump was headed into the GOP convention with a degree of momentum, but also uncertainty as to his choice for the vice presidential slot and still some wavering Republicans who needed to be brought into his coalition. It seemed that Joe Biden, for as much as he had struggled through a series of meandering interviews and uneven public appearances, was going to survive the attempts to move on from his presidency on the Democratic ticket. And for all the unsteadiness of the race, most polling showed that Trump was only slightly ahead in swing states across the country, with a long ways to go until November.The past week has changed everything.

Thursday

July 18, 2024

Cockburn

MSNBC’s hell week: Lord of the Rings racism, Covid and no Joe

It’s been a rough few days over at MSNBC. Since the attempted assassination on Donald Trump over the weekend, the network seems to be the one unable to regain its footing. From J-13 truthers to The Lord of the Rings conspiracies, here’s Cockburn’s rundown of everything that's gone wrong so far. Much like Joe Biden’s weekly routine, MSNBC got off to a shaky start on Monday after it pulled Morning Joe from air following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. Executives were worried Mika Brzezinski planned to pull out her hand-stitched Trump voodoo doll. Whatever the couple had cooked up, Joe Scarborough was not happy that they weren’t able to pull it off.

Spencer A. Klavan

The Biden-Trump rematch is a nationwide exercise in denial

Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is the other guy. This, we are frequently reminded, is their principal advantage in the eyes of many. It may be the only advantage Biden has left after decomposing in real time on the debate stage. Ironically, though, not being each other is one of the few important things these two men have in common. In 2024, a sizable portion of the electorate — maybe the majority — will vote not for a presidential candidate but against his opponent. It’s enough to make you wonder whether the whole affair is an apotropaic exercise, a mass effort to stave off something worse. Maybe we are scared — not just of Biden, or of Trump, but of what the alternatives might be. We have chosen to stick with the devils we know.

Ella Johnson

Clamor rises for Biden to step aside soon

The pressure is building for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Donald Trump leads Biden nationally in seven swing states, according to a recent poll from Emerson College. The New York Times ran a piece yesterday entitled: “Biden called ‘more receptive’ to hearing pleas to step aside.” Several top Democrats privately told Axios that the rising pressure will persuade president Biden to drop out of the race as soon as this weekend. Former president Barack Obama told “allies” that Biden should reconsider the viability of his candidacy, reports the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Biden tested positive for Covid — for the third time. He is currently isolated in his beach house in Delaware, and will not be attending in-person meetings for the next few days.