(PM.) A Washington Post columnist called for Joe Biden not to run for re-election in 2024. His reasoning is that Biden, mostly likely, can’t beat Trump. “…I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement—which was stopping Trump.”
David Ignatius noted that Biden only has, at best, a 39 percent approval rating, but that he has been “a successful and effective president.” This opening was to mitigate his conclusion, which is that Biden should not seek to continue leading the United States.
WaPo doesn’t think Biden can beat Trump. pic.twitter.com/tE7Hfv00GX
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 13, 2023
“Biden has never been good at saying no,” Ignatius writes, before condemning his choice of adding Kamala Harris to his ticket in 2020. Harris, who had run in the Democrat primary, never got more than 3 percent of the vote in polling.
“He should have resisted the choice of Harris,” he writes, “who was a colleague of his beloved son Beau when they were both state attorneys general. He should have blocked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which has done considerable damage to the island’s security. He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone.”
Biden, who repeatedly said that he was not at all privy to his son’s business dealings, has been revealed to have intimate awareness. He was on calls with Hunter Biden and Burisma execs, he was given money, and he used pseudonymous emails to be part of conversations about those foreign business arrangements.
The columnist added, “Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign,” his age and his running mate Kamala Harris.
Citing recent polling, Ignatius wrote, “…77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years.”
“Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.”
He then set his sights on Biden’s vice president. “Because of their concerns about Biden’s age, voters would sensibly focus on his presumptive running mate, Harris. She is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight.”
The author claimed that “Harris has many laudable qualities,” but qualified the remark writing, “the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.”
Ignatius claimed that Biden “…could encourage a more open vice-presidential selection process that could produce a stronger running mate.”
“There are many good alternatives, starting with now-Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass, whom I wish Biden had chosen in the first place, or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. But breaking up the ticket would be a free-for-all that could alienate Black women, a key constituency. Biden might end up more vulnerable.”
