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Factor out all the boilerplate, bragging and other bull, and what President Biden delivered Wednesday night — in quite possibly his last speech to the American people — was the ghost of an explanation for why he dropped out of his re-election race: the “need to unite my party.”
And “the best way forward was to pass the torch.”
Maybe they showed him poll numbers that finally convinced him he couldn’t win; maybe they drove home just how the donors’ strike made winning impossible; maybe they did threaten him with a 25th Amendment humiliation ousting him from the presidency immediately; maybe it was some other combo of hammers and bribes.
Whatever: They convinced him that the party he’d always strived to please didn’t want him anymore.
Brutal.
Yet he still won’t admit the obvious truth that he can’t possibly serve out a second term; earlier in the day, his press secretary was loyally insisting he could.
Yet his subtle slurring, his mulish self-praise and trope-packed blather made it plain he’ll be lucky to serve as a feeble figurehead ’til January.
He’s a shadow of what he once was, however impressive or not you judge that to be — bereft even of the high-energy cunning that marked the true highlight of his career, his evisceration of Paul Ryan in the 2012 veep debate.
What to know about President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
- President Biden announced Sunday he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race — after weeks of prominent Democrats and donors calling on him to withdraw following his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate.
- In a letter posted on X Sunday afternoon, Biden admitted that it is in the “best interest of my party and country” for him to step down as the Democratic nominee.
- Biden wrote that he intends to serve out the remainder of his term and will address the country on his decision later this week.
- In a follow-up X post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the suddenly open Democratic nomination. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” the president wrote.
- Former President Donald Trump reacted to the news by labeling Biden the “worst president in the history of our country” in a call with CNN.
Was his endorsement of Kamala Harris as the replacement nominee a subtle sort of revenge for the party’s rejection?
His perfunctory and vague praise of her in this address seemed telling — or maybe he just didn’t want to share any credit as he listed all his imaginary achievements.
Then again, since the new party line is that she was never Border Czar, maybe she didn’t want credit for his most spectacular flight of fancy: “We’re also securing the border.”
At least he could deliver the line he’d botched at that fateful debate: “We finally beat Big Pharma” — not Medicare.
No recognition here that he’s the lamest of lame ducks: He’s going to cure cancer before he goes!
C’mon, Joe.
Add in the tattered “defend democracy” blather — after he orchestrated the least democratic Democratic primaries ever, now rendered moot by the (perfectly legal and utterly necessary) coup by party elites forcing him to drop — for a nominee-to-be who’s never won one single vote on her own as a national candidate.
One who’s running against a rival the Dems tried to take down with utterly outrageous lawfare — which had the same success as Thomas Crooks’ bullets.
Maybe Biden has actually convinced himself the republic dies if Orange Man wins in November; maybe he’s just sticking to the only script he’s got left.
He hasn’t persuaded the American public; quite the contrary.
And we doubt the word-salad woman will, either.
And so Joe Biden’s half-century-plus political career ends not with a bang but an all-too-fitting whimper.