In the latest edition of “NOW it can be told,” with two days left in Joe Biden’s presidency, the New York Times tells us that six people effectively controlled what information got to Biden, and what information was withheld.
Six key people protected the president.
Jill Biden, the first lady, and Hunter Biden, his surviving son, fervently believed in his ability to win. Mr. Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, the counselor to Mr. Biden, knew when and how to deliver information, along with Annie Tomasini, the deputy chief of staff. She and Anthony Bernal, the first lady’s most senior aide, took tight control over the president’s public schedule.
One more observation about the foggy, out-of-it mindset of our president for the past four years: Apparently, it never crossed Joe Biden’s mind that it was odd that he rarely if ever did events before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m. in the afternoon. (The Times reports, “Biden pushed his staff to keep him scheduled and busy,” but we can see the leisurely pace in the public schedule, and how many days featured the words, “the President has no public events scheduled.”)
It never seemed unusual to Biden that he was doing so few press conferences or sit-down interviews. During the president’s rare public appearances, we noticed Biden asking his staff, “Am I allowed to take any questions?” Why is the president asking his staff if he’s allowed to do this?
When his staff rolled out a teleprompter for him to use while making remarks at small fund-raisers in private homes, Biden just nodded and went along with it. It never struck him as peculiar that he, the president of the United States, was expected to stick to prepared remarks at an off-camera Democratic fundraiser with only one print reporter in the room.
He never met with his pollsters from his reelection campaign, and that didn’t seem abnormal to him.
His need for naps during the debate preparation days didn’t strike him as a sign that maybe he no longer had the energy for job.
In this most recent article, the Times still offers excuses for Biden, stating, “he was exhausted from not one but two trips to Europe and a fund-raiser in California in the weeks before his debate with Mr. Trump on June 27.”
He went to the 80th anniversary of D-Day in France from June 5 to 9. The second trip was to the G7 Summit in Italy from June 12 to 14. He flew directly to Los Angeles for a fundraiser with George Clooney. He was back at the White House 9:30 p.m. June 16.
Biden did not leave the east coast between June 16 and 27, and had no public events on his schedule from June 19 to 27. Those trips had been eleven days earlier! If you can’t recover from jet lag within eleven days, you cannot handle the duties of the president.
Separately, in an interview with Bari Weiss, House Speaker Mike Johnson has told a deeply unnerving story about having great difficulty getting a face-to-face meeting with the president, then asking Biden about a policy decision that he didn’t seem to remember making:
“Can I ask you a question? I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana,” Johnson recalled telling Biden. “Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him.”
Biden, according to Johnson, was stunned. “I didn’t do that,” Biden said. Johnson responded, “Mr. President, yes you did. It was an executive order like three weeks ago.” Biden continued to deny that he paused the LNG exports. At that point, Johnson suggested that the president ask the president’s secretary to print out the executive order, so the two could read it together.
Biden then recalled that he had signed an executive order, but it only called for a study on the effects of LNG. Johnson was firm. “Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security.”
In this exchange, Johnson said he realized that Biden was not lying to him. “He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson said. “And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, “We are in serious trouble—who is running the country?” Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.”
On January 26, 2024, Biden’s White House — my deliberate wording — announced “a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations.” The White House meeting Johnson described was February 27, 2024.