Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

The US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garland as attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection while presiding over a justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.

With just more than three weeks of his single-term presidency remaining, Biden’s reported rueful reflections are revealed in a Washington Post profile that contains the clearest signs yet that he thinks he erred in withdrawing his candidacy in July after a woeful debate performance against his rival for the White House, Trump, the previous month.

269 points

No, he wouldn’t have.

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But of course he would think that. 🙄🙄

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37 points
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I mean he might have, a lot of people that voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Kamala in 2024 for various reasons. Trump did only very slightly better in 2024 than be did in 2020. Would the people who stayed home and didn’t vote for Kamala have gotten out and voted for Biden? Maybe. If anything though Biden should have dropped out sooner or not ran at all, the DNC should have fielded better candidates, instead they spent 4 years (longer) trying to strangle any progressives before they could become feasible candidates.

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64 points
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The Joe Biden who showed up in 2020 would have beaten Trump. Joe Biden in 2024 is not the same guy.

The only real asset Joe had over Kamala, though, is a penis. For some voters, though, that’s enough to make them pick one and not the other.

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14 points
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For some voters, though, that’s enough to make them pick one and not the other.

Those voters would’ve picked Trump over Biden anyway. The Democrats will never, ever win by falling over themselves to court those types of voters at the expense of progressives and leftists.

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7 points

One of the Republican talking points was that Kamala never won a primary and just snuck in. Not that it mattered for her actual policies but more so it was another reason for votor apathy

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17 points

His own internal polling had trump winning over 400 versus him

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14 points
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I mean he might have

No. “We finally beat Medicaid” Biden would have lost, bigly.

If anything though Biden should have dropped out sooner or not ran at all

Yes, 100% this. He should have been the transitional president he signaled he’d be, before being elected in 2020.

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8 points

I actually think that Biden won the election because of the primary campaign against Bernie. Bernie shifted the platform left and attracted young voters to the party that subsequently voted for Biden in the general election (even if they had to hold their noses). Nothing like a primary to unite voters behind the candidate.

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8 points

A lot of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 spent the next four years getting poorer.

Kamala lost because she promised to be four more years of the same thing.

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19 points

I agree.

They would have kept showing that first debate performance over and over as a reason Joe is too old, and it would have worked.

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15 points

I mean he already had, and if he had capitalized on how a LOSER was going to try and LOSE again because he was a huge loser I think he might have swayed many of the minds

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9 points

I agree, but it deserves more discussion than just “No.”

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6 points

Eh, does it? The whole reason he was pushed out was because he was a combination of personally incoherent and organizationally sheltered from reality. His opinion on his own greatness has little value.

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-1 points

Depends how senile he would be or not be. What killed him was the debate, if there was another one and he was fully fine, then yeah a decent chance.

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154 points

The US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garlandas attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection

At least that part is fair

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45 points
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It’s been absolutely appalling how long it has taken to prosecute Trump.
Many cases should have been ready the second he was no-longer president.
All the lame considerations about looks and not getting involved is idiotic. if the politicians in power don’t work to defend democracy, who else should?
The left have been screaming for Democrats to wake up for more than a decade, but they behave like a party with dementia that doesn’t understand what’s going on around them.
As AOC has stated multiple times, people will come to vote for you, if you give them a good enough reason for it. Harris was the better more moderate candidate. But I think most Americans want more, they want real change. Like better healthcare, environment protection, democracy etc.
Preventing a fascist narcissist becoming president apparently wasn’t enough?!

But maybe I’m wrong, maybe the majority of Americans prefer to live with the danger of not receiving healthcare, and the danger of being financially ruined by healthcare bills. Rather than living in a “socialist hellhole” where society actually care about the citizens?

The number one cause for bankruptcies in USA is healthcare bills.

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18 points

Remember how there was already a document produced by a special prosecutor that said there were crimes committed but a sitting president couldn’t be prosecuted? Just fucking memory holed by Garland’s DOJ. He literally could have taken that up the day he was confirmed.

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2 points
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I’d say his first mistake was choosing Garland. Biden then made a second mistake when he didn’t immediately fire Garland as soon as it became obvious that Garland wasn’t going to do his job.

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-30 points

So it’s everybody else’s fault.

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29 points

said he made a mistake

He literally said it was his.

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-16 points

No, he literally said his mistake was selecting Garland. There were many other mistakes, and opportunities for him to push Garland even after he had been selected.

That’s the taking responsibility equivalent of “I’m sorry you feel that way” apology.

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113 points

Not a chance in hell.

It does highlight how out of touch those in the gerontocracy are, however.

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106 points

Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.

Him and his staff misled and dragged their feet about his intentions early in then he went full out with ‘no I’m gonna run fuck you all’ and it turned into a disaster.

This is just one of the problems with the current Democratic Party. No one will work with and groom the upcoming young members to take control. The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.

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41 points

I wish this comment was higher. Biden betrayed the party and its chances of defeating Trump the moment he won the 2020 election and chose to not start preparing the nation on Jan 20th 2021 for a younger generation to lead. Merrick fucking Garland was the other, related, and just as large mistake. That one is totally on him.

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17 points

And Kamala has just never been a great candidate, but he could have taken actions to try to boost her prominence. Instead he saddled her with no-win issues throughout and jealously guarded any successes for himself. And the one big bad issue I remember that he didn’t dump on her (the rail strike), he farmed out to Pete Buttigieg to be the face of the administration (even though it wasn’t a DOT issue). It was almost like the goal was to sabotage any potential locus of political power that wasn’t Biden and his inner circle.

I don’t think a better grooming would have helped Harris when she wasn’t willing to be not-Biden in any way other than being coherent, but it certainly didn’t help and seems indicative of their lack of intention to ever transfer power.

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11 points

An open primary would have helped.

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A massive look back (Whenever we have the ability for free press again after Trump) on the consistent self sabotage of Clinton-Biden-Harris would become a new The Prince for future generations of leaders.

“It’s better to be feared as a leader than to be loved as one.”

“It’s better to not shoot yourself in the foot and then declare you’re good for a 10K, after saying the last 4K was your last.”

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27 points

The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.

“They young care too much about disrupting our economy (making it more fair which means less for my owners donors) we can’t have that.”

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2 points
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I have a fun test for you, it will inform you if your information ecosystem is informing you or misinforming you

Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.

You clearly remember this as a big promise during Biden’s 2020 campaign - but can you actually find evidence of him saying this, ever?

Can you find anything official - with a name attached to it - of the Biden campaign saying anything about only serving for one term?

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16 points

Google gives a bunch of examples. Did he actually say it to the press? Perhaps not. Was it discussed and was his age recognized as a liability within his campaign in 2020? Absolutely yes.

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10 points
*

They all, all reference the exact same quote each article.

“If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”

The adviser argued that public acknowledgment of that reality could help Biden mollify younger voters, especially on the left, who are unexcited by his candidacy and fear that his nomination would serve as an eight-year roadblock to the next generation of Democrats.

By signaling that he will serve just one term and choosing a running mate and Cabinet that is young and diverse, Biden could offer himself to the Democratic primary electorate as the candidate best suited to defeat Trump as well as the candidate who can usher into power the party’s fresh faces.

None of that was official, it was all just the campaign’s attempt to shore up an issue they had without an actual commitment and you fell for it.

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3 points

His campaign unofficially put that out in 2020, since he was near the bottom of the primary rankings. Campaigns that desperate start to float ideas as a trial balloon, to see if it would help or not. That’s how this works; a suggestion given by campaign staff that he can formally deny if it hurts his campaign or embrace if it’s helping. Once he started to gain ground in the primaries he backed off of the idea. He did many of these trial ideas.

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21 points

Sour grapes. There are no guarantees he would have won, and the propaganda machine would have played almost exactly the same tune it did for Harris. Eggs, israel, gas prices, too old…

People stayed home. That’s why we got trump.

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20 points

Not sour grapes.

Pure fucking delusion and narcissism.

We all watched the debate. There was no coming back from that.

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