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Regretting his withdrawal, Biden: I would have beaten Donald Trump regardless of the polls

2024-12-28 23:28:31Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Regretting his withdrawal, Biden: I would have beaten Donald Trump regardless of
Biden and Trump

Incumbent US President Joe Biden has stated that he regrets withdrawing from this year's presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in the election, despite negative poll indications.

The US president is also said to have 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 January 6, 2021 uprising while heading the department that aggressively prosecuted Biden's son, Hunter.

With just over three weeks of his only remaining presidency, Biden's reportedly sad reflections are revealed in a Washington Post profile that contains clear signs that he still thinks he was wrong to withdraw his candidacy in July after a debate against his White House rival, Trump.

The president stepped aside to be replaced as his party's nominee by US Vice President Kamala Harris after mounting pressure from fellow Democrats, who cited polling evidence that appeared to show he was heading for a near-certain victory over Trump, who was seeking a historic return to the White House as the Republican nominee.

Harris' rise to the top led to a surge in enthusiasm and improved poll numbers, but ultimately ended in a decisive electoral college and popular vote loss.

While Biden and his aides have been careful not to blame Harris, they apparently believe the outcome would have been different if he had stayed in his position, according to the Washington Post.

It's a view contested by many of Harris' supporters, who blame the president for waiting too long before withdrawing, thus leaving the vice president less time to mount an effective campaign.

They also point out that Biden's determination to seek a second term violated his 2020 campaign pledge to be a "transitional" figure, who would pass the torch after one term after moving the country away from the Trump presidency.

“Biden ran on the promise that he would be a transitional president and, in fact, would have one term before handing it over to another generation,” Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, told the Post.

"I think his candidacy again broke this concept, the conceptual basis of the theory that he would end Trump's appeal, he would defeat Trumpism and enable a new era," he said.

The outgoing president's suspicions of Garland are shocking considering he announced her as his nominee for attorney general the day after a Trump-incited mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an ultimately failed attempt to overturn Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.

At the time, Biden said Garland would restore the "honor, integrity, independence" of the Justice Department after years of perceived politicization under Trump.

"Your loyalty is not to me. It is to the law, to the constitution, to the people of this nation," Biden told Garland at his official unveiling.

But according to the Post, Biden had to be persuaded by his chief of staff, Ron Klain, to choose Garland, at the time best known as Barack Obama's failed pick to succeed Antonin Scalia.

Biden's political allies had made the case for Doug Jones, then a Democratic senator from Alabama, arguing that he would be better equipped to navigate Washington's bitterly partisan atmosphere.

Klain, instead, argued that Garland, known for his justice system, would send a more reassuring message about the independence of the Justice Department after Trump.

As events unfolded, Biden still faced false accusations from Trump of “weaponizing” the department as he pursued criminal investigations into his role on January 6 and the White House’s collection of classified documents, even as he also investigated Hunter Biden and the president himself, the latter also for illegally holding classified documents.

Biden now believes he should have chosen someone else, the Post reported, a view consistent with many Democrats, who believe Garland was too slow to investigate and ultimately prosecute Trump for the Jan. 6 and related activities to reverse his defeat.

The deliberate pace of the investigation, which eventually resulted in the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith, meant that Trump was ultimately able to avoid the spectacle of a politically damaging trial ahead of this year's election.

Smith last month formally applied to have his two criminal cases against Trump dismissed in light of his election victory, effectively ending them./The Guardian


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