For some time, I've been watching videos of Joe Biden to see for myself if he was showing signs of cognitive decline. Time after time, the answer was no. He had obvious physical limitations, but mentally he had no problems. What's more, all indications suggested he was carrying out the duties of the presidency just fine.
That makes his performance last Thursday genuinely puzzling. Nevertheless, it was what it was: the performance of a man who was halting, confused, lost, and sometimes just plain incoherent. The evidence of cognitive decay was so obvious that even Biden partisans couldn't spin it away.
Sadly, this 90-minute look into Biden's mental state—temporary or not—makes it clear that he shouldn't be president any longer. It's too risky. He should resign the office immediately and turn the reins over to Kamala Harris.
And what then should Harris do? This is purely a question of politics. I can hardly believe I'm about to say this, but my suggestion would be to talk a moderate Republican—a Rob Portman type—into becoming her vice president and running mate and creating a bipartisan front against Donald Trump. This would shake things up enough to give her a chance of beating Trump in November.
This kind of suggestion is a horrible cliche, but it has possibilities. It's not the most important thing, though. What's important is that the president can't be a person who's obviously not all there—even if that's true only occasionally. Biden needs to leave office with dignity while he still can.
I'd give Gov Shapiro a call first
Pretty sure you need Michigan's 15 electoral votes to get to 270.
you'll need Pennsylvania's as well
My comment is not about Whitmer
and?
Or Romney
At this point I'd vote Romney
My brother's thoughts: (Sorry for caps) - BIDEN CAN DEFEAT TRUMP BY AGREEING TO STEP DOWN subject to the party accepting his terms to avoid a chaotic convention.
Notify the party he will step down if his delegates agree to accept his chosen replacement to assure the defeat of Trump. A ticket of Whitmer/Shapiro defeats Trump by guaranteeing the Electoral College votes of PA and Michigan.
Biden’s willingness to step aside to assure the defeat of an existential threat should inspire others to do the same. Kamala will be a devastating AG in the next administration prior to becoming the next Supreme Court Justice. Do it!
Biden has been a great president but will be a failure if his neediness forces the country to place a long odds bet on his ability to win re-election when he has a sure path to defeat Trump, to save the Supreme Court and continue his policies.
Biden can transcend the presidency and become a patriot in the company of Washington and Lincoln for doing what is best for the country in this trying time.
Even with MiWiPa (and everything Biden won by five points or more in 2020) you still need NE-3 or it goes to Congress. Grant, Omaha polls pale Blue, not tossup, but The Blue Wall is not sufficient itself.
Maybe Kamala would be fine with the "demotion", because she did enjoy being AG of California and was very good at the job, but it would depress Black support even more. That would put any possibility of a happy shock from Georgia or North Carolina out of question, and might even make Virginia vulnerable.
It really strains credulity to ask people to believe that the Biden we saw on stage at the debate will be capable of being President for the next four and one half years. That was more than a cold, more than a hoarse voice. And if Joe is so old that a cold can do that to him, well he's not up to the task anymore.
The first thing to do when you found you've dug yourself into a hole is to stop digging.
"Biden has been great for three and a half years, but one bad night means he's done, he can't be trusted with anything."
Haha this. Also, it's fucking summer right now, and probably a hundred million or more voters didn't even watch Thursday night's debate. CBS News says only 51m people tuned in to see Joe with a cold.
THANK YOU! Murc you cannily speak to the insanity of the hot take that Biden must go.
Good lord, man. This isn't The West Wing.
Right?
Agreed 100%. This is more like The Wire. And to quote Slim Charles, "If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight."
This is really sad. If Biden steps down Trump will be king. Might as well start addressing Trump as “your royal highness” and referring to his wife as “Queen” and his sons as “Prince”. Makes me sick.
Well, that's what the Supreme Court decided today. Of course, they've got to go, too.
Funny that nobody has told Republicans that their much-convicted rapist, tax cheat, records-falsifying candidate due to be sentenced in a few weeks needs to step down. Double standared, or what?
Oh, and young "Baron" gets an upgrade, I see.
The Philadelphia Inquirer called for Trump's withdrawal. Any others?
Also look at Reagan's first debate with Mondale in 1984. He was WAY more confused and incoherent than Biden was the other night. I am not going to say that Reagan was not cognitively impaired or that I liked his policies. But the country was fine with him as president for the next 4 years.
Can't agree that Reagan was equally out of it...
As argued here, with video clips...
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/dear-dems-gaslighting-isnt-helping-biden-debate
He was WAY more confused and incoherent than Biden was the other night.
That's not remotely true. I say that as someone who believes Joe Biden has been an infinitely better president than Ronald Reagan.
I get why a lot of Democrats are saying "Stay the course, changing horses midstream right now would just play into Republican hands and we couldn't control the chaos that would ensue. Biden had one bad night and we can move on." All things being equal, that's probably the best move. The problem with that assumption, however, is that as the campaign goes on, the chances of Biden having another "bad night" then another, and another... approaches one. So what do we do once he's officially the nominee and has some other complete cognitive meltdown at the next debate? Or at some big campaign event? We're in for death by a thousand cuts.
Biden doesn't have dementia, but he does have age-related mental acuity and communication difficulties. I see it in my parents all the time and it's nothing to be concerned about until it really starts interfering with quality of life. But they're not in charge of running the country, either.
There's also the Kennedy factor. I think five days ago there was reason to believe his candidacy would fade into oblivion. But the debate debacle might shift some anti-Trump voters into voting third party. Sure, the readers of this blog generally aren't this naive about politics. But a lot of people are.
For voters who don't like Trump but now have serious misgivings about Joe Biden, the existence of a high profile third party candidacy is worrying.
Kennedy is too much of a fringe loonbat to attract much support, and he also doesn't have the money and ground game to mount a serious challenge (e.g. like self-funded billionaire Ross Perot). But yeah, some "outside the beltway" independent trying to sweep in and shake things up at this point grows more likely the longer Biden tries to hold on, which I fear will just split Democrats more than it would peel off voters from Trump.
Kennedy's actual policies are more likely to cost Trump votes than Biden votes. It is his name only that makes him attractive to under-informed D voters. He must be taken seriously and money must be spent against him, branding him as an imitation Trump (which he is).
No outside independent is going to sweep in. They’re not on the ballots and can’t be put on the ballot. It’s a massive effort getting on all 50 state ballots. It’s too late now.
Historically speaking ditching your incumbent surrenders a ton of support to the other side. There's never been a case where ditching the incumbent resulted in victory for the incumbent's party in all of US history, excepting of course the custom of only serving two terms that was adhered to by all but FDR.
Are there moderate Republicans?
LOL. And just who is this Rob Portman-style Republican that wouldn't immediately be branded a traitor and RINO by Trump and his cultists? MAGA doesn't really like Republicans either, that's why they all failed so miserably trying to challenge Trump. But I do agree that Biden should step down immediately.
The idea of a Republican running mate is ridiculous, and I'm surprised the usually reality-grounded Kevin Drum has suggested it. For one thing, a moderate Democratic governor like Beshear or Shapiro would do just as well. For another, what happens if Harris dies? Are all the Democratic appointees immediately fired and replaced by Republicans?
No way will that ever happen - would be seen as a huge betrayal of the Democratic party and its voters.
In the states that can have different parties for governor and lt. governor, mixing parties doesn't work well at all. The Lt Gov Mark Robinson of NC is well known for undermining Gov Roy Cooper's policies and decisions every time Cooper is out-of-state. And this totally ignores the fact that a black Democratic woman having a Republican first in line for replacement puts a huge target on her own back. Secret Service can't stop everybody trying to shoot you.
Did Kevin forget how the badly the Adams/Jefferson admins worked out?
hell, with this secret service, they might be the ones doing just that.
This is balderdash, nonsense, and tripe. Poppycock to the highest degree. Some people -- The butt-hurt NYT comes to mind --are determined to make the Dean Scream a thing again, but it ain't gonna happen in this house.
The guy who voted with trump 90% of the time when trump was president is a "moderate" is he?
How many democrats voted with Biden less than 90% of the time?
There aren't any great ways to make it happen the way things work currently.
But an interesting proposal. Harris would have to have a veep ready before anything happened. Portman is a decent intelligent issue not nonsense oriented guy, sort of like Adan Kinzinger. He would make a good president - for a Republican. But he is way too Republican. Unless you just tell him to shut up and stay in his office cutting out paper dolls he would be completely unacceptable on a Democrat party ticket. I don't think he would do it anyway.
In 2011, Portman voted to limit the government's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and in 2015, voted to block the Clean Power Plan. In 2013, he voted for a point of order opposing a carbon tax or fee on carbon emissions. In 2012, Portman said he wanted more oil drilling on public lands. Portman supported development of the Keystone XL pipeline. In 2017, he voted to repeal the ACA. He has an "A" rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund.
He's progressive on gay rights - because, typically for a Republican, his son came out as gay in 2011.
I'll just add that if it does come to Biden stepping aside for Harris, the LAST GODDAMN THING she should do is reach out to some Republican as a running mate. Sheez, Kevin. Quit reading the NYT editorial page. There are plenty of good, solid Democratic governors, Senators, and other pols out there to choose from, e.g. J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttgeig, and so on. I think Gavin Newsom has too much baggage and I don't think the Pres and VP candidates are allowed to be from the same state anyway (maybe Harris is officially a resident of DC now, idk).
This is brain rot.
Jonathan Chait's take is better, even though I'm not sure I agree with it. But it's at least well-reasoned.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/biden-and-harris-absurd-case-for-post-debate-complacency.html
correction to my post about johnathan chait: you do not in fact have to hand it to him.
He's laid bare his racist misogyny.
I've been saying since the debate that, if Biden does withdraw from the race, he ought to resign the presidency. A six month caretaker Biden presidency does nobody any favors.
I don't agree Harris should choose a Republican as her VP, though. Sorry, but they cannot be trusted (how did Comey work out?). Choose a moderate Democrat from the heartland. Andy Beshear works for me. Or Mark Kelly. Or Roy Cooper. Or Sherrod Brown. I also like JB Pritzker—the dude's a fighter. Someone along those lines.
Relatedly: I wonder what are the chances the House stops a VP replacement from being voted on? Asking for a friend.
99.999% unless Harris's VP choice is "Mike Johnson." There's no other person Mike Johnson would allow the House to vote on to put between himself and the White House.
It's about 100% likely the House wouldn't vote to fill the vice presidential vacancy.
[Concurring with Austin, whose reply got in before mine.]
I like Biden. I voted for Biden. I think his presidency has been the best in my lifetime. I blame Biden and his team 100% for putting us in this mess which is in itself disconcerting. How many bad decisions were made to get to this point. Many people, including and especially Biden himself are at fault here and we are going to hear the drumbeats for four months!? And let’s be real, his performance was 100% age related and there is no reason to think he will not get worse. He should have been in the Sundays shows, etc., but they are still hiding him! I mean come on man. He needs to step down or at least announce he is not running for reelection. As to the rest, it will somehow be figured out.
Had Biden planned to leave after one term from the beginning, I think history would have been very kind to him, as the man who stepped up to serve country and party in an hour of need, only to exit the stage with dignity once the job had been accomplished. That’s not quite worthy of Mount Rushmore, but such an example would have always shone when the country most needed it. Hell, even his advancing age would have only served to burnish the legend. Now he’s likely to end up as a cautionary tale, lumped in with the likes of Ruth Ginsburg, Diane Feinstein and likely others. Pity.
Now he’s likely to end up as a cautionary tale, lumped in with the likes of Ruth Ginsburg, Diane Feinstein and likely others. Pity.
Oh please. You can't peer into the future any more than anyone else can. If Joe Biden resigns and the new nominee defeats Trump, Biden will go down in history as an excellent president who led us out of a very dark place and then relinquished the office when his health gave out.
> If Joe Biden resigns and the new nominee defeats Trump, Biden will go down in history as an excellent president
Jasper, are you for real? What are you doing if not peering into the future, and with even stronger language?
My best friend is a prominent and wise doctor of nearly 70 years - intuitive, top of her field, beloved, never jumps to conclusions. For 2 years she has increasingly suspected Biden showing early signs of dementia. It's hard to know you have it from inside - it just feels like you can't remember something, or you're unaware of a pause in speech, or a mild tremor of Parkinson's. Now we've seen an episode 90 minutes straight. Tragically, more are to come, and at unpredictable moments. There is nothing for Biden and his team to do but to step down - with grace, and with, I hope, a deal that replaces him with a winning ticket. Winning is everything this time. Feelings of fairness or of favors owed mean nothing.
Well, if your friend were a member of the Biden Cabinet, she could try to persuade the other members and VP Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment. Otherwise, she's just another person with an opinion.
The only VP in that scenario who could make that work is Liz Cheney, and I doubt it would work.
I think Kevin's idea to choose a Republican as VP is quite daft, but if Harris were going to go that route, a far better choice would be Charlie Baker.
I like and admire Liz Cheney's for her genuine political courage vis-a-vis Trump. But she's a committed, ideological right winger. Baker is by far the most moderate Republican we've seen in many years.
I'd think 'moderate Republican' in this wouldn't motivate anyone, which would be the key issue.
+1
charlie christ?
do former republicans count?
Why should he ever have to leave? The Supreme Court just said that presidents can not be prosecuted for "official acts" and most everything can be an official act. Apparently no crime/fraud exception, so better than attorney client privilege. It's good to be the king. I wonder if they quoted Nixon, "If the president does it, it's not a crime".
given that decision, biden's only choice is to order the luquidation of donald trump, see that it happens, then retire from the presidency & upon kamala harris's accession to the oval surrender himself to the doj.
kamala's doj will mount a criminal case against biden for criminal conspiracy to engage on murder, & biden's attorneys, as part of a vigourous defense will challenge his successor's ability to prosecute an official act of the presidency.
this puts the ball in chief supreme roberts court to decide if presidential immunity really is effectively total or if there are some acts so illegitimate & outside acceptable behavior that a president must face consequence for them.
mods delete please.
Aww, sweet summer child. You're obvi new here. Kevin doesn't have any mods. It's why his comments are usually full of trolls.
Wow. Talk about a 180. From insisting Joe is fine to declaring that he's not fit to even serve until January.
No R will consider serving with Kamala. Not even Liz Cheney who is as about as aligned with my politics as any politician. I'd rather have non compos mentis Biden in there with the Deep State running things than that incompetent insufferable hard left blowhard otherwise known as KH. Seriously don't bother shuffling Joe out if it's to just bring her in. You either have a truly open convention meaning she gets no incumbency or privileges, which would allow for a good Dem moderate like Andy Beshear to come in, or close ranks behind Joe and hope Trump gets taken out by a lightning strike.
Lightning strike? I hadn't factored that possibility into my calculations. Seeing how Trump likes the play golf in the thunderstorm capital of America (Florida), I might need to increase Biden's chances to almost 1%.
How has that hippie punching been working out for you people since 2004? well?
Resign the presidency? Well OK, that would be better than staying in the race.
But I would rather hope that he quickly announces a decision not to run again, and let our only sane political party sort things out. Jamie Raskin made a statement that Biden will be keynote speaker at the convention whether he is the candidate or not!
If we go the route of a Republican vice-president, I would go with Liz Cheney. If Biden does not relinquish his candidacy, I suspect she will be heard from in some significant manner.
But if Biden stays in, there are those Democrats like me who will revile him as the man whose ego lost our democracy.
While I doubt 1) Biden not completing his term 2) Portman on a Democratic ticket, I know this, 70% of America no longer feels that Biden is mentally fit to be President. 70% must include a lot of Democrats and would likely ensure a Trump victory....
Does no one remember Kamala Harris in the debates when she ran last time? She was terrible.
This would be the ideal scenario for guaranteeing a Trump victory.
If Joe doesn't run, we should open up the convention, and there's no reason for him to step down, he can finish his term, the electoral concern is a different thing (can he do the job for next 4 years).
She wasn't anywhere near as bad as Joe was Thursday. Not even close. Not even the same ball park. Not even the same zip code. Not even the same metropolitan statistical area. Any honest assessment of Thursday night would make that clear.
Up until Thursday I was absolutely convinced that Kamala would not be as strong of a candidate as Joe, so even though I had some misgivings, I dismissed the idea of replacing Joe. But the debate was so awful, and so high-profile, that I'm now more inclined to believe Kamala (who I admit is not the strongest candidate) would be stronger than Joe.
Stronger than an old guy with a bad cold, sure.
Your response is "yeah, Biden was worse, but in his defense, he is old." And this is an argument in favor of him staying in the race? He's not going to get less old from here on in!
No, my point is Kamala Harris is a terrible candidate who will do worse than Joe Biden in any scenario, and not just because she's a lousy campaigner but because she will existentially motivate the Nazis while being altogether unable to generate any motivation of her own among anyone who might vote for her.
This makes her an extremely weak candidate.
Alright, at least I can follow the logic here. I disagree, but I understand it.
My own ideal scenario is that Justice Sotomayor retires, Biden appoints Harris to the SC, Biden picks Gretchen Whitmer to replace Harris, Biden drops out of the race and Whitmer runs. I'm no big Harris fan.
But after Thursday night, I don't think Biden can win. Maybe Harris can't win either, but I think she has a better chance - a higher variance, as the numbers people put it.
Interesting scenario.
This centrist pundit bullshit is going to end up saddling us with Trump. The attitude is exclusive to elites who think having Beltway-level media polish is necessary to do a job. It isn't. If Biden supports Ukraine instead of Putin, keeps the ACA instead of destroying it, appoints judges who will uphold the Constitution rather than destroying it, and a hundred other things that he will do in contrast to Trump, I don't care if he takes a bit of time to collect himself first. It's all such bullshit.
as grover norquist has said of his ideal gop president, "only working thumbs required".
I don't know where the attitude came from. We have other people to fly jet fighters and whatnot. The presidency is an office job. It doesn't require hair-trigger reflexes.
I think 50 million Americans watching the current president be unable to finish his own sentences is more likely to saddle us with Trump than whatever Kevin Drum writes.
Yes, that seems obvious to me. But it is still tragically amusing that so many people here are still so locked into a cult of Biden. They are pure! They think that reason will carry the day with everyday Americans! How quaint!
And actually there ARE good reasons why an aging president who will be 76 at the end of the next term and cannot presently finish his own sentences should not be re-elected.
Not to worry! The matter will ultimately be decided by Democratic officeholders who will lose big time if Biden heads the ticket. Their decisions cannot but go against Biden staying.
"I have three and a half years of him and hours of video of him being just fine, but he had a bad night and that means he's incompetent to carry out the Presidency and must resigned."
You should be ashamed of yourself.
This is literally everyone in the country. Nobody is all there all the time.
These reactions are shocking to me. Biden has been known to have occasional problems speaking and to put his foot in his mouth for decades. Kevin admits "I've been watching him for years and seen nothing wrong, but I get one data point to the contrary and he MUST resign, he's unfit for office."
And calling on putting a REPUBLICAN on the ticket is just grotesque.
In the present highly intransigent environment, and especially with Trump voters, there is no conversation, there is only motivation or de-motivation.
Everything you do must be focused on de-motivating the other side and super-motivating your side.
I don't see where Biden resigning can do anything but grotesquely motivate the wrong people.
I've been reading you for years, and this might be the dumbest thing you've ever written.
full self driving just around the corner comes close.
I've seen a few stories about the weekend at Camp David and Biden's family urging him to stay the course, with some mention of he needs to fire staff. He should be listening to top dem leaders. Will any of them publically call for him to step down?
I see no reason for Biden to resign from office, he has been a fine president. Let's not confuse concerns about the next 4 years with the next 6 months, he's up to the job.
Aside from that, if he bows out of reelection, open up the competition, there may be better candidates than Harris (and maybe not). Unless there is a fundamental issue with fundraising thus far and/or ballot access.
No Republicans on the ticket lol, it's never going to happen, and it shouldn't.
Blacks and women are the key voting blocs fog Democrats. Dumping Harris won’t help his reelection chances.
Whose election chances? And I'm not talking about "dumping" Harris.