Biden physically spent, mentally confused and out of touch throughout the campaign

 

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

 + In his new book on the 2024 election, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, Chris Whipple gets Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, to paint Biden as physically spent, mentally confused and out of touch throughout the campaign, and at one point seemed to believe himself to be the head of NATO instead of the US.

+ Here’s Whipple’s account of the preparation for Biden’s debate with Trump:

At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin, Klain was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.

That evening Biden met again with Klain and his team, [Biden aides] Mike Donilon, Steve Richetti, and Bruce Reed. ‘We sat around the table,’ said Klain. ‘[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.’

Klain wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US. ‘He just became very enraptured with being the head of Nato,’ he said. That wouldn’t help him on Capitol Hill because, as Klain noted, ‘domestic political leaders don’t really care what [Emmanuel] Macron and [Olaf] Scholz think.’

…

25 minutes into the second mock debate, the president was done for the day. ‘I’m just too tired to continue and I’m afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad,’ he said. ‘I just need some sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’ He went off to bed.

The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged. Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.