When Joe Biden ran for president in 2020, the criticism of his campaign was that he didn’t spend enough time, well, campaigning.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden team decided it would be better to keep their candidate at home and away from the public. That strategy would be harder to execute this time around because there is no public health emergency to blame, but that didn’t stop one prominent Democrat from suggesting Biden stay out of the spotlight.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of The End of Everything, to discuss what kind of campaign Biden is capable of running in 2024 and what it will do to the Democrats’ chances in November.
Van Jones Speaks
During an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, former Obama advisor Van Jones did not mince words when talking about Biden’s ability – or rather inability – to effectively campaign this election cycle.
JONES: If I were Biden, I would stay hidden. And I’ll tell you why. He doesn’t inspire confidence, and he’s not a great messenger for himself… There is something wrong with this campaign where we are somehow expecting Joe Biden – who, frankly, hid during the last campaign – to come out now and be Flash Gordon and save his own campaign. The people who are benefiting from the Biden economy, and they exist, should be empowered to speak…
He went on to say that there are “union members” and “clean energy executives in red states” who are “racking up win after win” and should be put forward to speak about the Biden administration’s accomplishments.
Biden’s Latest Fumble
To Jones’ point about the president’s communication skills, Biden delivered some curious remarks during a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday.
The commander in chief was talking about abortion rights in honor of the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, when he seemingly tried to say something along the lines of ‘don’t mess with the women of America.’ Instead, he slurred his speech. “We’ll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson,” he said. “Don’t mess with [unintelligible] unless you want to get the benefit.”
Hanson said that Jones may have been trying to make the point that Democrats can no longer look past Biden’s condition. “I think Biden is declining at a geometric rather than arithmetic rate. I think it is getting worse by the week, and the time he is not in the White House is increasing,” he noted. “I think the subtext of what he was hinting at is there should be an intervention.”
That “intervention” could come in the form of finding a new candidate. “If you are saying that he can’t campaign and you are not going to have an excuse [like COVID], then he’s really saying: At the convention, that’s your last chance to do something,” Hanson explained. “I think that ‘do something’ would… not be the elevation of Kamala Harris. It might be the intervention of Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom.”
Done Running Cover?
Hanson speculated that Jones’ also may have been expressing his frustration with the status quo in the Democrat Party. “I think what he’s saying is, ‘Look, when we had a high inflation, I covered for him; when interest rates went up, I covered for him; when we see all the stuff going on in the Middle East and Afghanistan, I covered for him; when we saw the crime going up, I covered for him; when I saw the open border, I covered for him; when he’s hidden in the basement, I covered for him. But at some point, I can’t do this any longer,’” he said.
Whether or not the party heeds Jones’ warning is another question. “I think he’s trying to warn people either that he’s not going to do it anymore, or that they shouldn’t do it anymore, or that Biden shouldn’t do it anymore,” Hanson concluded. “But we can’t keep telling everybody that he’s perfectly cognizant and there’s no problem.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 709 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.