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For years, conservative media, lawmakers and speaking heads have been sounding the alarm about President Joe Biden’s cognitive free fall. And for years, left-wing media, lawmakers and their loyal mouthpieces waved it off with the identical condescending dismissal — accusing us of mendacity, fear-mongering or worse. Some even went as far as to say they couldn’t sustain with Biden’s supposed brilliance and jam-packed schedule of what was largely only one morning briefing and two mid-afternoon naps.
Quick-forward to the post-presidency. Now that Biden has shuffled out of workplace, left-wing media appears to be waking as much as the obviously apparent. The New York Occasions of all locations — sure, the identical paper that acted as Biden’s PR agency — has revealed that he relied on teleprompters throughout intimate fundraisers in personal properties. At occasions the place he was supposed to return throughout as informal and personable, he wanted scripted prompts. Donors weren’t precisely brimming with confidence.
Home Speaker Mike Johnson dropped a bombshell a few January 2024 assembly through which Biden was apparently surprised to study he had signed an government order halting liquefied pure fuel exports simply weeks earlier. He repeatedly denied even figuring out about it. Johnson believed Biden didn’t know what he signed, leaving him with a terrifying query: “Who’s working the nation?”
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Spoiler alert: It wasn’t Biden. And to reply Johnson’s query, there are not less than 5 shadowy figures who may need been behind the wheel — or slightly, letting the automobile roll downhill with nobody on the brakes.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama is without doubt one of the seemingly candidates for who was working the Biden White Home behind the scenes. (REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer)
1. Former President Barack Obama
Keep in mind when former President Barack Obama joked in a 2020 interview with Stephen Colbert that he’d love a 3rd time period the place he might play puppet grasp whereas another person carried out his orders? Properly, guess what — he could as effectively have been describing the Biden presidency.
The continuity of Obama-era insurance policies beneath Biden is obvious. Biden’s radical financial and local weather boondoggles — like Construct Again Higher and The Inflation Discount Act — weren’t simply echoes of Obama’s agenda; they have been carbon copies, with Biden taking part in the function of a much less convincing understudy. Biden’s personal “Obamacare” albatross was simply as disastrous, besides this time it was painted inexperienced, value much more, and led to an inflation nightmare.
And let’s not overlook the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco, which had Obama’s fingerprints throughout it. The identical architects of Obama-era failures have been in cost, bungling timelines and ignoring warnings. In the meantime, Biden gave the impression to be caught off guard at each flip, stunned by how the plan unfolded — as a result of he in all probability wasn’t the one pulling the strings. Who have been Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin and CIA Director William Burns really answering to?
Obama wasn’t precisely delicate about staying within the image. He was providing Biden recommendation, headlining White House events, and reportedly holding closed-door conferences with key officers. By 2023, when Biden’s psychological decline grew to become more and more tough to camouflage, Politico overtly puzzled, “Is Barack Obama Prepared To Reassert Himself?” He may need been asserting himself the complete time, or not less than nudging the wheel whereas Biden tried to determine the place the automobile keys have been.
2. First Woman Jill Biden
The primary girl was Joe Biden’s handler, coach and babysitter. Jill Biden’s affect on Joe’s decision-making has been an open secret for years, beginning together with his determination to run for president in 2020, despite the fact that shut advisers reportedly warned he didn’t have the stamina for a grueling marketing campaign.
When Joe Biden’s promise to be a one-term president got here up, and Democrats started eyeing the door for his or her subsequent candidate, it was Jill who satisfied him to run for re-election — regardless of what she needed to learn about his apparent decline. Was this about his legacy, or was it only a determined energy seize?
After Joe Biden’s disastrous debate efficiency in opposition to Donald Trump, the place he regarded extra confused than commanding, Jill delivered the type of reward that may make North Korean propagandists blush: “You answered each query! You knew all of the info!”
It was as plausible as former Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas telling us the border was safe whereas we watched movies displaying unlawful immigrants streaming throughout it. Mayorkas lied to guard an agenda; Jill lied to guard her husband’s picture — and her personal grip on affect.
First girl Jill Biden, third from left, speaks throughout a Biden administration Cupboard assembly. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Keep in mind the notorious photo of her sitting within the president’s chair on Air Power One whereas “prepping for the G7 Summit”? Or how she led a cabinet meeting final September? Since when does the primary girl run cupboard conferences? Jill was stepping in when her husband was disengaged, disoriented or in any other case absent — a task that feels extra like performing president than loving associate.
3. Chief of Employees Jeff Zients
Biden’s Chief of Employees Jeff Zients, usually known as a “fixer,” quietly emerged as one of the crucial highly effective figures within the administration. Zients’ affect was evident through the early phases of the pandemic, when he spearheaded the COVID-19 response group. Since then, his function has expanded, successfully making him the behind-the-scenes supervisor of the White Home with a president who didn’t grasp what was actually happening.
Zients performed a vital half in shaping and managing the administration’s day-to-day agenda, together with overseeing staffing selections and guaranteeing execution of Biden’s initiatives. He recruited a 3rd deputy chief of workers, Natalie Quillian, to implement the administration’s initiatives, however the transfer was internally controversial, ruffling feathers of those that noticed her as Zients’ enforcer because the “unhealthy cop.”
Given Zients’ repute as a detail-oriented supervisor with vital management over White Home operations, it’s actually believable that he orchestrated the signing of the chief order halting liquefied pure fuel exports, guaranteeing it aligned together with his broader environmental or financial targets with out requiring Biden’s deep engagement.
4. Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan
His function as nationwide safety advisor positioned him as a key determine within the Biden administration, however given the president’s cognitive talents, it might have been merely calling the pictures. Too unhealthy he wasn’t very profitable.
Sullivan was instrumental in orchestrating main insurance policies, such because the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the place he managed the planning course of. Sullivan was so concerned that it caught the eye of Congressman Mike McCaul, who demanded Sullivan testify in entrance of a Home committee. He additionally performed a major function in shaping the administration’s industrial technique, selling insurance policies to guard U.S. manufacturing and counter China’s technological developments.
Given these substantial duties and his central function in formulating and implementing coverage, it is believable that Sullivan functioned as a de facto chief inside the administration, particularly given Biden’s capability to manipulate.
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5. A purple-haired 24-year-old intern who moonlights as a TikTok influencer
The unconventional shift in gender and race insurance policies beneath the Biden administration screams of a progressive activist fully out of contact with mainstream America.
Jeff Zients, former White Home Chief of Employees, is one other seemingly chance for who was pulling the strings within the Biden White Home. FILE: Zients attends an occasion within the East Room of the White Home March 1, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Photos)
Biden’s determination to let organic males compete in girls’s sports activities — signed as an government order on day one — showcases the intense agenda of far-left influencers. Add to that the administration’s push for important race concept coaching throughout federal businesses and its abandonment of meritocracy for race- and gender-conscious hiring.
These insurance policies really feel like they have been dreamed up by a 24-year-old progressive recent out of faculty, recent off a “hole 12 months” funded by their mother and father whereas they “roughed it” in luxurious motels throughout Europe.
Then there’s the White Home’s reliance on TikTok and X influencers like Harry Sisson and Chris Mowrey. Watching influencers awkwardly dance whereas professing their love for an octogenarian president wasn’t simply embarrassing — it was a window into who’s actually shaping the administration’s messaging.
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The primary girl was Joe Biden’s handler, coach and babysitter. Jill Biden’s affect on Joe’s decision-making has been an open secret for years, beginning together with his determination to run for president in 2020, despite the fact that shut advisers reportedly warned he didn’t have the stamina for a grueling marketing campaign.
What sort of grownup turns to TikTok twerps for severe promotion? In all probability one other TikTok twerp with entry to Biden’s social media accounts. This cringe-worthy reliance on influencers displays a radicalized youth presence within the White Home, wielding outsized affect over each coverage and messaging.
The Rejects
May Vice President Kamala Harris actually have been working the present? Unlikely. She handled her VP title the identical approach she dealt with her border czar function — loving the status whereas doing subsequent to nothing. As for Hunter Biden, he could have had affect, however working a shadow presidency whereas hawking finger work for Oval Workplace entry? That’s a full-time job all by itself. And actor George Clooney? Positive, he ended Biden’s presidency with one editorial, however let’s be actual — would somebody who wields that type of affect surrender energy so simply? Doubt it.
