President Joe Biden, who has less than two weeks left in his term, gave an exit interview with USA Today. Takeaways from the interview were published on Wednesday morning, an interview which The Wall Street Journal referred to as "boggling." Perhaps the most delusional moment from Biden is that he believes he could have beaten President-elect Donald Trump, who will be his predecessor as well as his successor.
As Susan Page's write-up of the interview mentioned:
WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden, both reflective and defensive as he discussed his legacy, told USA TODAY he believes he could have won his reelection bid − but isn't sure he would have had the vigor to complete four more years in the Oval Office.
"So far, so good," he said. "But who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old?"
...
He acknowledged his age was an issue.
"I had no intention of running after Beau died − for real, not a joke," Biden said, referring to the death of his elder son in 2015 of brain cancer. That family tragedy at what seemed to be the end of his political career was a bookend to the one at its beginning, when his first wife and baby daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash.
Then, in 2020, "when Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton" to the next generation of Democratic leaders, a phrase many in his party took to mean he wasn't likely to seek a second term.
"But I don't know," he said, returning to the question about whether he could have fulfilled the world's hardest job for another four years. "Who the hell knows?"
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If Biden acknowledges he might have been too old to serve effectively as president at 86-years-old, which is putting it politely, what makes him so confident that he actually could have won in a rematch against Trump? Especially when it was becoming increasingly clear that he was losing his mental faculties, no matter how much White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Democrats' allies in the mainstream media tried to convince the American people otherwise? While Biden may be out of office soon, he likely hasn't been the one in charge for some time now.
When Biden was still running for reelection against Trump, polls consistently showed that Trump would emerge victorious this time. Following Biden's disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump, the president's fellow Democrats could no longer ignore what they had just been gaslighting the American people on. Biden was ultimately forced out of the race, and less than a month later, on July 21, he indicated in a letter shared over X that he was dropping out. Harris, who has yet to ever win a single primary vote, was ultimately installed as the replacement nominee.
Given how mentally gone he is, Biden's comments come off as rather bizarre. Biden's ouster also still represents quite the display of Democrats in disarray, as he no doubt holds a grudge against those in his own party for forcing him out of the race. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) threw him under the bus in an interview with The New York Times just days after the election, as she complained that he didn't drop out earlier and endorsed Harris too soon after he finally did drop out.
Jake Schneider, the Rapid Response Director with the GOP put out a fact-check on Wednesday for the exit interview, fact-checking 11 points the outgoing president made, including his claims he could have won against Trump.
CLAIM: "I think yes, based on the polling that [I would have won the election]."
FACT: That isn't even close to what the polling said, which showed Biden was on track to lose in an historic landslide.
As delusional as such an idea from Biden is, it's not exactly a new thought from him. Other outlets have also indicated he's claimed as much.
These comments from Biden that he could have won while questioning his own abilities are especially noteworthy and were a trending topic over X on Wednesday. They weren't the only comments from the outgoing president, though. Far from it. He also claimed Trump bestowed compliments upon him, which was actually what the headline of Page's write-up focused on.
As the write-up claimed:
In public, Trump has decried the state of the nation as "a disaster" and "a mess." But at their private meeting, Trump praised him, Biden said. "He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done. And he talked about − he thought I was leaving with a good record."
Matt will have more on Thursday morning when it comes to analysis as to why this claim from Biden is totally bogus, and from someone who doesn't exactly work for a MAGA network.
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