The Free Press
Joe Biden is back, or at least out of the house, with a new interview that was the first from the 82-year-old former president since he left the White House. Strangely, given that Biden was an American president, it was on the BBC.
On mute, it looked like a normal interview with a former president. Turn the sound on and what you heard was a bizarre, unfortunate showcase of Biden’s age and precipitously declining cognitive abilities.
The setting for this display was a nostalgic one for Biden. It was recorded at the Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden launched his first Senate campaign over 50 years ago.
BBC interviewer Nick Robinson reminded viewers that Biden is the last living president born during World War II. This might have been pointed out because the interview was released on the eve of VE Day, which commemorates Germany’s official surrender on May 8, 1945.
But after watching the interview, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this disclosure served a dual purpose, a sort of warning. The message? The person you’re about to see is very, very old—so cut him some slack.
The interview focused mostly on foreign policy, specifically Biden’s reverence for NATO, which the former president believes is under threat by the Trump administration. His answers to Robinson’s questions were often meandering, and frankly, confusing. When asked if Trump was still respecting NATO’s obligations, Biden said, “Well, he”—meaning Trump—“doesn’t say it is.”
Biden then went on to remark that “one of the only advantages of being the old guy is that I’ve known every major world leader in the last 30 years, and I’ve known them personally.” From there, Biden recounted his experiences with European leaders at an event he called “the last meeting of the G7—the NATO 7—or the G20, which is a larger group.”
When Biden was asked what he thought about critics who say he didn’t give Ukraine the long-range missiles they needed “to really win” in the war against Russia, Biden responded: “The idea that they could win without engaging NATO in a war, NATO having engaged the Soviet Union,” before correcting himself. “The former Soviet Union.”
Perhaps remembering that Ukraine was also part of the Soviet Union, Biden corrected himself again. “Russia,” the former president said.
Biden was critical of Trump in the BBC interview, but his attacks fell flat, in part due to Biden’s strange quasi-religious faith in a form of bipartisan centrism that I won’t attack for fear of violating the Endangered Species Act.
Through many coughs and long pauses, Biden also said that Trump is “not behaving like a Republican president.” But Biden then said he wasn’t worried about it because Trump’s fellow Republicans are “waking up to what Trump is about.”
Perhaps Biden knows something I don’t, or perhaps he’s referring to Never Trump Republicans on MSNBC. The BBC didn’t ask, so we’ll never know.
With Biden’s cognitive decline on full display, the obvious question was finally raised. Does he regret not dropping out of the presidential race sooner?
No. Not at all.
“We left at a time when we were—we had a good candidate. She was fully funded,” Biden said, referring to Kamala Harris, who was beaten by Trump. “What happened was—I had become,” he stammered. “What we had set out to do no one thought we could do—had become so successful in our agenda it was hard to say now, I’m gonna stop now.”
Biden later added that his decision to drop out was difficult but that he had no regrets, and he maintained that it was “the right decision.”
The entire display was a tragedy. Even in light of his stubborn refusal to quit the presidential race until the very last minute, it’s still easy to feel badly for Biden. Was he even well enough to be trusted with the responsibility to make such an important decision?
In situations like this, one must ask: Where was the family? Apparently, quite busy trotting out a clearly ailing man in front of the cameras. Tomorrow, perhaps the real former president and real villain of this story—Dr. Jill Biden—will appear on The View.
Joe Biden shouldn’t be on The View. Like my great-grandmother, who is nearly 90 and has dementia, he should be at home, smoking menthols and playing dominoes at the kitchen table. Like my great-grandmother, when someone asks Biden what he did yesterday, he should be given permission to shrug his shoulders and say, “Who knows?”
There’s dignity in that, and it’s what the old deserve, even our most mediocre presidents.
Read Bari Weiss on the day Biden’s mental state could no longer be hidden:
