President also regrets picking Merrick Garland for attorney general, as he was slow to prosecute Trump for January 6
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 US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garland as attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection while presiding over a justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.
With just more than three weeks of his single-term presidency remaining, Biden’s reported rueful reflections are revealed in a Washington Post profile that contains the clearest signs yet that he thinks he erred in withdrawing his candidacy in July after a woeful debate performance against his rival for the White House, Trump, the previous month.
Sour grapes. There are no guarantees he would have won, and the propaganda machine would have played almost exactly the same tune it did for Harris. Eggs, israel, gas prices, too old…
Hell, he might be right (I doubt it but you never know). BUT better than either of those options would have been if he'd announced by 2023 that he would not be running for reelection (like he campaigned on!) so the Dems could have had a full field and competitive primaries. That would have given them the best chance to win (but would they have? kinda doubt that too).
I DO agree with his understatement that his Garland decision was a mistake. Not just a mistake, a disaster!
Biden: "I'm a one term president, stability in crisis."
Biden: "I don't care, fuck it, you only live once, I'm running again!"
People: "You said you were a one term canidate, you're old, you didn't do COVID well, you broke up strikes, you aren't protecting women's rights, trans people are under attack, Mexicans are still in cages at the border, Ukraine could use more help, you're doing a bad job at stopping weapons to Israel, rent is gone up, inflation is stopped bu not down, groceries are still expensive..."
Biden: "Shut up Jack, check this out!"
["Primaries" give him the win, flops at debate, hands things to Harris]
Biden: "Well I did what I could do. ...I would have won anyways, why be consistant with what I say and do? Now lemme pardon my son after I said I wouldn't."
For an ancient venal egotist like Joe, the fact that Kamala lost is close to a best case scenario. He would've gotten completely waxed if he had stayed in... but now he gets to say he was forced aside by the party leaders (Pelosi, the Obamas etc.) and that is completely verifiably true, but he also gets to claim he totally would've won, which is very likely not true, but now we will never know.
I just don't understand why Biden's family and those closest to him wouldn't have taken the time to be like "Joe, just shut your mouth. Cement your legacy as one of the best Presidents the USA has ever had, make some shit for Donald harder on the way out, and enjoy retirement."
Instead he's showing his whole ass. And for what? Once real history gets memory-holed by the fascists none of his whining matters anyway. He could have done a lot of good on his way out.
He likely would not have won. It surprises me how discrepancies in this election haven't been questioned, but at this point it may not matter. As for his choice of Merrick Garland. Yeah, that and not really doing much about unseating DeJoy was a mistake.
The US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garlandas attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021insurrection
Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.
Him and his staff misled and dragged their feet about his intentions early in then he went full out with ‘no I’m gonna run fuck you all’ and it turned into a disaster.
This is just one of the problems with the current Democratic Party. No one will work with and groom the upcoming young members to take control. The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.
No, all the problems left of fascists have with Kamala were even moreso with him. The only way Democrats could have won was to hold a fair primary which they haven't done in a long time. They needed to get people voting for a candidate and not against the other guy which has been the strategy of both parties for ages, but doesn't work well when one side has people voting for him and your side actually wanted to vote against you, but were never given an alternate.
His own staff had data that showed he would have lost even more electoral votes, giving Trump 400 instead of the 312. Biden is not aware of this data though. Kind of makes you think his staff is still heavily censoring what he sees.
"Benedict Arnold" developed a clear connotation over time. The same needs to become true for "Merrick Garland". History will remember him as a coward beyond measure and a key to enabling trump's final push to end American democracy.
I would say "wow, the dementia is even farther along than we realized" but it's likely the entire neoliberal faction that will be determined to come to this erroneous conclusion. They will grasp at any straw, even racist/sexist ones, in order to avoid admitting that the electorate is crying out for anti-corporate change.
This ghoul was propped up in 2020 with the full force of the party and then won thanks to covid, but he thinks he's some hero. Democrats lost in 2024 in large part thanks to him. Fuck you biden, you racist, genocidal, and power-hungry piece of shit.
So… I take it he’s completely forgotten that disastrous debate by now huh? It was pretty clear to even the most fervent Biden supporters that he wasn’t going to win. When even those folks were telling him to resign, it as done by that point.
If anything, staying in would’ve driven more people to Trump or caused them to stay home due to disillusionment.
What a prick. No ownership of his candidacy-destroying debate performance. And thanks for taking so long to withdraw after you fucked that to the moon. Let him be the basis for age ceilings on presidential candidates.
Might've, might not've. It's irrelevant now, of course.
What Biden and Harris will be remembered most for, is their peaceful transition of power to a mentally unbalanced fascist tyrant, knowingly, compliantly, without even any public statements of caution.
Biden and Harris are ready to quietly shake hands with Trump and Pence, hand them control of everything, after then retire to a quiet life of luxury and highly-paid speaking engagements, where they'll continue the Democratic Party's proud tradition of speaking without really saying anything.
on no fucking planet is this the case. Also, him hanging on as long as he did, didn't help things. It's not like the Harris campaign did themselves any favors, but was clear not one person the the management caste of the DNC really gave a fuck about winning.
Fuck's sake. As deluded as he was when he stayed in despite internal polling showing him losing in a landslide. Fuckwad very well may have handed American democracy over to its execution.
Seems like this is his way of arrogantly throwing Harris under the bus for his own historically low ratings, starting back in 2022 after Roe was lost. Theres no way he could have done better than Harris. With him running it would have been an even bigger blowout. He seems to think he could run a genocide against his parties wishes and then go on to win an election. Its idiotic.
I'm reading the WaPo article it's based on and guys this is some pure grade bullshit. They start with 5d Chess; then they say people were unable to hear about his victories because of the media, they were unable to appreciate the best Covid recovery in the world; and yes, he claims he could have beaten Trump.
It's an incredibly flattering article for a man who was so far out of touch he called outrage over inflation the best recovery in the world. Yeah they managed a soft landing, but that shit didn't trickle down. We're on our second year of record breaking increases in homeless people. We don't give a goddamn shit about the stock market when we're shopping for used Recreational Vehicles to use as our primary housing. If families are choosing between utilities, rent, and food, then your Bidenomics message is going to do worse than fall flat, it's going to blow up in your face.
And the whole style over substance thing. Just holy shit batman, he broke the strike of workers who were (and are still) massively abused. He did that on prime time television. And then he negotiated for the office worker parts of the unions to get improvements and it's a complete submarine. Not only did he do the bad, he did no PR damage control, not even to show what little he gave the workers after he shut down their strike. At one point in the WaPo article someone mentions that Biden tried to run the country like it was 1972, and I agree with that statement.
Which brings us to the crux of his sins as a leader. He was unwilling to listen to the people he was supposed to be leading. At every turn he decided that he and his high paid advisors from the corporate world knew better then the people actually struggling. He might have thought he was playing 5d chess but he was losing at checkers... badly.
I just hope they don't think Harris lost because she didn't have enough time and then run her again in 2028, either without a primary or with a heavily one-sided primary like in 2016.
Anyone who figured out messaging beyond "Look how bad Trump is, even Bush republicans won't vote for him" probably wins that election. No one had a broad vision to latch for sale, and no one did anything inspiring.
The statistics and composite polls predicted the Trump victory, and they predicted it even before Biden dropped out by a larger margin, so he is incorrect.
But, given how people chose Trump over Kamala, I can't blame him for thinking that way. Clearly the USA does have reservations about electing a women and a minority.