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In case President Biden left you scratching your head after the State of the Union Address — like when he said that food workers have to sign non-compete agreements — on Wednesday he appeared with Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour to sort things out.
Mark Knoller, former CBS News White House correspondent, noted that this was Biden’s 33rd interview. That’s in comparison to Trump’s 147th and Obama’s 273rd at the same point in their presidencies. But who’s counting?
Interview today with PBS/Judy Woodruff brings Biden interview count to 33. Compares at same point to:
Trump: 147
Obama: 273— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 9, 2023
Here are some of the key points from the PBS interview.
Woodruff asked the President to comment on reports that China-US relations may have soured after the SOTU comments. Here’s how that went:
Woodruff: “So China today is saying they feel smeared, that you smeared them and their leader in your remarks last night. Have relations now between the U.S. and China taken a big hit lately?”
Biden: “No.”
Woodruff: “How do you know?”
Biden: “I know. I talked to him.”
Not that he’s talked to Chinese President Xi Jinping since that spy balloon kerfuffle went down. No, Joe has talked tough to Xi before and everything is cool.
China, however, didn’t quite see it that way. As is typical, they came out in a full-throated condemnation of Biden’s remarks on China during his State of the Union.
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning accused him of “smearing” China:
“It is not the practice of a responsible country to smear a country or restrict the country’s legitimate development rights under the excuse of competition, even at the expense of disrupting the global industrial and supply chain.”
That’s boilerplate Chinese hyperbole, of course. But it also shows that Xi Jinping and Chinese Communist Party can throw whatever shade they want at the US because of the weak hand at the helm. Remember those 2021 talks in Alaska when a Chinese foreign minister told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that black Americans were being “slaughtered”? China has no fear of Joe Biden.
Woodruff touched on the sticky question about why a bunch of classified documents have shown up in Biden’s home, and even in his garage (with his precious Corvette). She first buttered him up by telling him that he handled it so much better than Donald Trump. Then she asked this:
“But I want to ask you about quickly about what you said last September. You said just possessing classified documents is you said ‘totally irresponsible.’ So what was totally irresponsible about the fact that you had some.”
Well, he can’t talk much about that, he told her. But then he ‘fessed up that not only were these “stray papers” from his time as Vice President, but there are also documents from 1974. In other words, from his days as a freshman senator, two years after he was first elected. That’s different from the official White House insistence that the papers came from his Vice Presidency.
The White House has explicitly said that some of the records were from his stint as Vice President https://t.co/QYjmAN1mzY
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 9, 2023
Why were classified documents in Biden’s possession in the first place? Blame the packers, said Joe:
“One of the things that happened is that what was not done well is, as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there.”
Biden may have a point — sort of. University of Chicago political science professor emeritus Charles Lipson, a writer for Spectator US, acknowledges that there’s a big problem:
“Most of them, it seems, were hurriedly packed by government aides during an administration’s final days, even as the president and vice president were busy handling their official responsibilities.”
Lipson has a solution, too:
“The National Archives can provide outgoing senior officials with a secure location to store their materials temporarily, giving them time to sort through them methodically.”
That’s so simple, why didn’t anyone think of that before? I know — because the government is in charge. But more to the point: why on earth did Biden have classified documents from when he was a freshman senator? Did he think it was okay to remove them from the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) when he was reading them there?
Ultimately, however, Biden was responsible for all of the documents, as was Donald Trump and Mike Pence, for that matter.
The PBS interview couldn’t possibly end without Judy Woodruff asking the Big Question: does Joe Biden plan to run for president again?
Seriously, anyone watching the State of the Union would realize that it was pretty much an early campaign speech. But Woodruff asked it anyway:
“Every indication you’re running for reelection. You haven’t announced yet. Democrats, though, as you, I’m sure you know, are saying we wonder about his age. You’d be 82 to date of the next election, 86 if you’re successful and elected and finish that term. Does it give you any concern?”
Of course not! Why, Joe says he’s perfectly fit to run again — should he decide, of course. Age? Why, it’s only a number, right?
“Watch me. It’s all I can say. I mean, you know, it goes from one extreme to the other. Last night I was — I heard that people are saying, Well, just watch Biden, my God, age is not an issue anymore.”
Uh, yeah, it is. Joe may be a legend in his own mind, but he comes off like Grandpa Simpson yelling at clouds.
The dementia meds Joe Biden takes b4 these types of events clearly makes him a bitter angry soul. #SOTU pic.twitter.com/1RAadq5cX0
— Max Andrews (@realthinkmax) February 8, 2023
He continued to tell Woodruff:
“I would be completely, thoroughly honest with the American people if I thought there was any health problem, anything that would keep me from being able to do the job.”
He doesn’t need to be “thoroughly honest with the American people” — as if he’s ever been honest in the first place. It’s obvious that he’s cognitively declining, although his handlers, the press, and Jill will continue to prop him up.
Joe Biden should not run in 2024. (Neither should Donald Trump, for that matter.) And to think we have two more years of this decrepit chucklehead. Lord help us.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore/flickr/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0,
Cameron says: Blame the packers? You are the one who is ultimately responsible for the handling of classified material in your care. But in his defense, he probably forgot that he had it five minutes after setting it down.
Stephen C says: There is honest, and there is thoroughly honest.
American Human says: As you mentioned, the documents were in a SCIF. All classified material is logged. Even if it is in an open storage area, it is logged. If it is copied, it is logged. Eventually the material has to go back into a certified storage container. If one takes a classified document out of a SCIF, it is eventually noticed, or should be.
It is not a routine thing to just up and take a classified document from a SCIF and not have anyone notice its gone. If the documents were “signed out” to him, then they would need to be signed into a location. If not, all that is a violation of the law.
But the law is just for little people.
Sgt Steiner says: “Most of them, it seems, were hurriedly packed by government aides during an administration’s final days, even as the president and vice president were busy handling their official responsibilities.”
What’s with the hurried packing up the office? I keep pointing out that the VP had known since the Nov 2016 election that he would be leaving office on Jan 20, 2017. Heck he’d known since the 2011 election.
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