The Implosion of Joe Biden's Presidency

The age question can no longer be ignored.

President Joe Biden leaves after delivering remarks at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 8, 2024. | Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

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I think it’s safe to say that Joe Biden’s presidency imploded last Thursday.

First, Robert Hur’s special counsel report was released. Hur concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” But he declined to issue any charges, calling the president “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” that a jury would be reluctant to convict. The report notes that Biden committed a “serious felony,” but based on the prosecutors’ “interactions and conversations,” it was clear that Biden would create reasonable doubt with a jury who might never believe he was capable of a “mental state of willfulness.”

You’ve likely heard some of the jaw-dropping details, but they bear repeating:

In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.

In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall.

The point is that the special counsel appointed by Biden’s own Department of Justice said that the president essentially enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution because his brain and memory are so impaired that he can’t form the requisite intent or willfulness required to commit a crime.

Let’s just pause here and acknowledge how absolutely insane it is that the official position of the DOJ is that Biden — who is running for reelection, has the world’s most powerful military and administrative arsenals at his command, and is equipped with decision making powers that can alter the trajectory of the world — is so old and infirm that no jury would be able to convict him. Incredibly, you could argue that Biden would have been better off if the special counsel report had recommended that he be indicted for serious crimes instead of spelling out why a jury would not convict someone so clearly out of it.

The second thing that happened on Thursday was that, following the release of the report, the White House commenced a flurry of presidential activity that is highly unusual for the president. Biden delivered not one but two public addresses in its wake, even going so far as to take reporters’ questions long past the time at which the president would normally retire. The goal was obviously to convey to the public that his vivacity and memory are fine, but in addition to his most cantankerous face, the performance featured several notable lapses and gaffes and did little more than exacerbate the very questions about his age that it was meant to dispel. Biden’s outraged response to the report’s claim that he “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” only confirmed the fact. “I wear, since the day he died, every single day,” he began, “the rosary he got from Our Lady of”—and that was all. He couldn’t recall where the object came from. Then, during the question-and-answer session after his prepared remarks, Biden labeled Egypt’s president, Abdel el-Sisi, “the president of Mexico.”¹

The reality is that since the special counsel report was released, the conduct of not just Biden but the media and the president’s handlers has starkly conveyed how devastating its conclusions are to the president’s political fortunes. The White House and its loyal mainstream media scribes have spent the past few days insisting that Hur is a “partisan hack” and “bad faith actor” who has made unfounded accusations and allegations against Biden.² But if Hur’s description is such an unfair characterization of Biden’s testimony, why not release the transcript and recording? Why would anyone withhold information that exonerates them?

If the president’s advisors really wished to dispel the notion that his cognitive acuity is in decline, they would have him do a “media blitz.” But that’s the last thing they want to do. Biden’s entire term in office has been carefully choreographed to avoid what exploded into view on Thursday—that he is too old to be an effective president. He hasn’t sat down for a formal television interview with any news outlet since October. And he hasn’t held a formal press conference since the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November, a day he took only four scripted questions.

Recall that Biden declined to give Election Night remarks after his big win in the South Carolina Democratic primary. He also did not make a televised address to the nation when the U.S. launched airstrikes against the Houthis in January, nor when he ordered airstrikes against other Iranian proxy groups in Iraq and Syria earlier this month—even though consent of the governed is a prerequisite for any sustained military campaign. Speaking with Politico reporters, the president’s aides insisted that Biden has declined to speak directly to the American people about the ongoing U.S.-led military campaigns designed to chasten Iran and its proxies because he doesn’t want to risk a backlash: “He’s been driven by concerns that delivering a major speech could escalate tensions with Iran and spark a larger regional conflict, according to three senior administration officials granted anonymity to speak publicly about internal deliberations.” This is, of course, ridiculous. Are we really to believe that a speech informing the public of the rationale behind retaliatory strikes would be somehow more provocative than the strikes themselves?

And no doubt many of you this past weekend noticed that Biden decided to eschew (for the second year in a row) the traditional pre-game interview with the network broadcasting the Super Bowl. Last year, the White House said the president’s reluctance was due to Fox; it claimed that he didn’t want to elevate a network that is “home to Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity,” as the New York Times put it. But this year CBS featured the Super Bowl, so new excuses had to be made. A member of Biden’s team told News Nation’s Kellie Meyer that they were supposedly frustrated because the network didn’t offer enough airtime, complaining that “Only 3-4 minutes of [the interview] would have actually aired during the Super Bowl coverage.” If that excuse doesn’t work for you, perhaps you’ll believe the other one offered: “Biden’s aides believe many voters — already exhausted from a bruising political season — simply want to tune into the game,” an NBC News report reads. “And that seeing the president pop up while waiting for kickoff might turn them off.” As Noah Rothman puts it, “When your own campaign team has convinced itself that the best defense of their candidate’s conduct is to tell reporters that voters just can’t stand the sight of him, you have deeper problems than the ones to which you’re admitting.”

Biden has been strangely absent and unavailable for questions for almost his entire presidency. Anyone with half a brain can tell that this conspicuously low profile is part of a deliberate communications strategy. The White House simply does not want the president overly exposed to the public. And contrary to his aides’ claims, the oft-derided “basement campaign” has made a comeback.

“President Joe Biden is going small to try to win big in November,” an Associated Press report from last week begins. “With 10 months to go until Election Day, the Democratic incumbent is all in on minimalist events — visits to a boba tea store, a family’s kitchen and a barbershop, for example — rather than big rallies.” You would think it would be wise to maximize the president’s exposure to the most American eyeballs during an election year, but Biden is instead “leaning into his strength as a retail politician” by making surprise visits to random retailers in the hopes that his appearances will generate organic traction on social media.

This administration is apparently oblivious to the fact that Biden’s continued low profile will inevitably reinforce the impression in voters’ minds that he’s not up to the demands imposed by the job he occupies.³ A whopping 86% of Americans surveyed think he’s too old to serve another term, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.⁴ Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get 86% of Americans to agree on anything? “86 percent is the sort of number you get when you ask if the sky is blue or if cars have wheels or if water is important to sustaining life,” says Charles Cooke. “One would struggle to find 86 percent support for pepperoni pizza at the We Love Pepperoni Pizza convention.”

And most troubling for Biden, this is not an impression voters have of his opponent. In a recent NBC News poll, Donald Trump maintained a 16-point advantage over Biden when voters were asked to evaluate which of these leaders was a “competent and effective” executive. When they were asked who has the “mental and physical health” to be president, their answers gave Trump a significant 23-point lead over the president. “The great advantage that Donald Trump has,” writes Rich Lowry, “isn’t that he’s youthful — at 77 years old, he’s emphatically not — but that he projects a vigor and a sense of being in command that younger politicians can’t match.” Even the rabidly anti-Trump New York Times seems to agree:

Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways. Mr. Trump often dyes his hair and appears unnaturally tan. He is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.⁵

The thing that’s beginning to dawn on Democrats is that there isn’t any clever tactical way they’ll be able to avoid further questions about Biden’s mental fitness. They’re now faced with a nightmare of their own making. And the worst part about it is that it’s a self-reinforcing one, because try as they might to avoid putting Biden in front of a microphone, they inevitably have to on occasion, which will only provide further proof of the president’s decline to voters, who have no great obligation to pretend that they cannot see the truth.

Democrats’ only hope is to frame the election as a referendum on Trump’s “boorish personality,” but even that might not work, because it requires providing Americans with an acceptable alternative candidate. Biden may have passed that threshold for most people in the last election, but doing so again this year will require millions of voters to look the other way as the president’s decline continues. And there’s just no getting around the fact that most people in this country do not want the President of the United States to essentially function as the King of England—someone with ceremonial status, but who ultimately must defer to bureaucrats behind the scenes.

The truth is that I feel bad for Biden. His confusion at public events, failing memory, verbal miscues, and stiff gait are indicative of serious physical and cognitive decline that would be alarming to see any government employee experience, let alone the man in the most demanding job on the planet. And his ability to carry out public duties has already degraded to the point where it’s clear that whatever is functioning as President is unelected and unaccountable. It was always silly to think that Biden would be able to handle the demands of the presidency as an octogenarian; it’s even more absurd to believe he’ll manage to remain in the Oval Office until age 86—something he himself seemed to acknowledge back in 2019. Perhaps the Hur report revelations, combined with what everyone can observe in his public appearances, will finally lead Democrats to have the difficult conversations necessary to begin the process of replacing him as the nominee.

1. This, the same week that Biden twice recalled speaking with a European leader who had died years earlier.

2. Democrats and the media are furious with Hur, but he didn’t do anything inappropriate. Hur was required by regulation to produce a confidential report explaining his reasoning. The special counsel’s job is to make the Attorney General aware of significant litigation issues that might arise if the decision to indict were made. The AG then decides whether to make it public or not. Over the years, it has become the norm to release such reports, and Merrick Garland decided to do it without any redactions. As National Review notes, “The regs make the report confidential, but Garland is the one who decided to release it publicly. You can argue that, politically, he had no choice. But the truth of it is that he did have a choice. The one who didn’t have a choice is Hur.”

3. Relevant: Biden has spent 436 days — 39% of his presidency — on vacation.

4. This includes 73% of Democrats.

5. Many people on X complaining about this passage said that they unsubscribed from the Times because of it.