You knew Joe Biden was going to say this—it only took this long because he likely forgot, being he’s been mentally incapacitated for the past four years: I could’ve beaten Donald Trump if I had stayed on the ticket. Biden got booted in July, paving the way for Kamala Harris to assume control of the cockpit. It was a coup, but let’s not rehash that—we already won the election. Yet, if things went south, and they did, you knew Biden was going to make this point, which is simply incorrect (via The Guardian):
No, I’m sorry it would’ve never happened. It would’ve never ever happened. He was bleeding voters in Pennsylvania demonstrably even before the debate. Anyone who spent any time on the ground reporting in my home state knows this as church because he had lost the working class. https://t.co/2LQuLM6gQT
— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) December 28, 2024
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.
[…]
While Biden and his aides have been careful not to blame Harris, they apparently believe the result would have been different if he had stood his ground, according to the Washington Post’s reporting.
It is a view disputed by many Harris supporters, who blame the president for waiting too long before withdrawing, thus leaving the vice-president with little time to mount an effective campaign.
Oh, this is so delicious. First, let’s end the fiction that Harris people wanted Joe to vacate earlier, as everyone was on the Biden train until the June debate on CNN. In retrospect, by that point, it was a sacrificial election cycle, as neither Kamala nor Joe could beat Trump. It was a choice between losing the Electoral College by Mitt Romney's 2012 margins or suffering a Jimmy Carter 1980 wipeout. Biden was the latter. Virginia would have gone to Trump if Biden had remained on the ticket, as Joe was crumbling rapidly in the Old Dominion. Trump would've padded his decisive victory in the Electoral College. He still would’ve won the popular vote, too. It’s also likely that the Biden campaign would’ve been cash-strapped in the election's final weeks as donors began withholding money. No way was Joe Biden ever going to beat Donald J. Trump.
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