As president, George W. Bush proudly assured visitors that he and no one else was “decider.” Just who was the “decider” in the Biden White House as the president of the United States slipped into senility remains an unanswered question.
That may be about to change. Insider accounts are dribbling out about President Biden’s inability to run the country. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ “Fight” hit bookstore shelves last week. Chris Whipple’s “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History” will be published this week and includes devastating observations from Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff from 2021 to 2023.
Neither book addresses that question head-on, but both detail the mental deterioration and insider concerns about their boss’ ability to do his job. Mr. Klain, a competent insider with years of experience, writes of his concern about a president who could not understand his programs or the mood of the voters. Mr. Klain prepared Mr. Biden for the debate with Mr. Trump and was shocked by his mental and physical deterioration since Mr. Klain left the White House. Both “mock” or practice debates ended early because the president was tired and almost incoherent. Mr. Klain told Mr. Whipple he feared the debate would be “a nationally televised disaster.” It was.
Yet Mr. Klain, like others in Mr. Biden’s inner circle, urged him to run for a second term, knowing he wasn’t capable of serving. They and their allies in the media covered up his true condition and assured his party’s leaders and voters that he was up to the job and could win a second term. Even after the debate that would end Mr. Biden’s candidacy, Mr. Klain told Mr. Whipple that he believed Mr. Biden should have stayed in the race and could have defeated Mr. Trump.
Mr. Klain’s account confirms that Democratic operatives were planning to run Mr. Biden for a second term, in a disservice to the man they worked for and in betraying the duty they owed their country. Many justified their actions after the election by claiming they thought Mr. Biden, unlike Vice President Kamala Harris, would have defeated Mr. Trump.
