President Joe Biden reportedly has expressed regrets about his presidency, most notably exiting from the 2024 race against Donald Trump.
Biden had been the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee heading into a June 27 debate against Trump. The then 81-year-old’s disastrous performance, though, led party leaders to push him out of the race.
The president was replaced on the ticket by Vice President Kamala Harris, who was trounced by Trump in the Nov. 5 election.
Now, Biden believes he should have stayed in the race despite both his debate effort and low job approval ratings, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Biden and some of his aides have told people recently he could have defeated Trump, according to the Post. Many Democrats, however, blame Harris' defeat on the president's insistence to remain in the race as long as he did.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was among Democrats who suggested Biden should have exited the race sooner.
"Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race," Pelosi told The New York Times soon after the election.
Some Democrats contend that Biden undermined his own message by not stepping aside for younger candidates.
"Biden ran on the promise that he was going to be a transitional president, and in effect, have one term before handing it off to another generation," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told the outlet.
"I think his running again broke that concept — the conceptual underpinning of the theory that he would end the Trump appeal, he would defeat Trumpism and enable a new era."
Although he doesn't second guess participating in the June 27 debate, Biden does regret his performance, during which struggled to put together sentences and defend his policies.
Following one incoherent response, Trump was asked to comment on Biden’s answer.
"I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either," Trump said.
Analysts say Biden, who turned 82 on Nov. 20, struggled to adjust to the world of podcasts and social media.
"The job of a president is reading where the country, where the politics is, and winning in it. And winning includes not having your party being defeated by the person you essentially promised to expunge from American politics," Julian E. Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, told the Post.
"President Biden and his supporters often yearn for a world that disappeared. You can’t actually govern the way you did in the 1970s in 2021."
Among Biden's other regrets is his choice of Merrick Garland to be attorney general.
Sources told the Post that the president has complained about the Justice Department's slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump, and its aggressiveness in prosecuting first son Hunter.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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