Joe Biden’s self-inflicted humiliation during the presidential debate stems from a host of factors but the primary cause is a leader growing more strictly controlled – and isolated – as his term progresses, a report Tuesday sets out.
Politico published an extensive analysis by a reporting team that pinpointed a “small clutch of advisers have built an increasingly protective circle around” the octogenarian, shielding him from criticism and playing to his desire to avoid scrutiny.
This effort to manage public perceptions of the oldest person to ever hold the office has “tightly control his political operation” to Biden’s detriment, as evidenced by his dismal debate showing.
It makes his own team less political advisers than accomplices in his demise.
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The report goes on to give examples of Biden’s inability to engage with the broader elements of his team:
During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings they’ll deliver to Biden, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information being presented in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction.
“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared shitless of him.”
The official said, “He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it.”
The report specifically names veteran members of the Biden team: senior adviser Anita Dunn, one of several proponents of the earlier debate, and former chief of staff Ron Klain, who oversaw the week of debate prep at Camp David, as delivering the poor debate result through their daily interaction with the 81-year-old.
“The whole planning, preparation was political malpractice,” Democratic megadonor John Morgan said in an interview with the outlet, blaming “the cabal” of the president’s closest aides, including Klain, Dunn and her husband, Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer.
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“I think he has a misplaced trust in these three people, and I believe he has from the inception.”
The Politico report was published within hours of another public appearance by Biden which came with similar outcomes as the presidential debate.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden spoke from the White House about the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling on Monday but not without stumbles and gaffes.
After quoting a Supreme Court justice during his speech, Biden said, “end of quote,” instead of pausing to indicate he finished delivering the quote.
Biden subsequently refused to take questions from the press before vacating the podium.