A PRESIDENCY’S BITTER END

Biden knows he has to go, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it

President Joe Biden and members of the Congressional Black Caucus visit Mario's Westside Market grocery store in Las Vegas on July 16. / Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images.

Donald Trump’s core campaign issue, as he made clear again and again on Thursday night, is still the border and what he calls “unchecked illegal immigration” and the murder and mayhem that he insists, as he did in earlier campaigns, those from the south have brought to America.

But the Democrats have a far more immediate and complicated political issue to address. Scores of published reports have stated that President Joe Biden has come to his political senses—with the help of Representative Nancy Pelosi, the strong-willed and straight-talking former speaker of the House—and concluded that he cannot run for re-election. 

The big issue for Biden has been the disaffection of many of his previously enthusiastic funders. One donor told me that there was much anger among his East Coast group at Biden’s inner circle for their mishandling of the president’s growing disconnection. “Not one of the president’s key aides,” he told me, “ever said one word to the donors” about the extent of Biden's disabilities prior to his revelatory debate with Trump last month. “It was as if the Democratic band was playing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ on the deck of the Titanic.”