Former president Joe Biden returned to The View on Thursday for his second interview since leaving office, stumbling through a series of exceedingly polite softball questions about his refusal to relinquish power despite widespread concerns about his age and cognitive health. He began by blaming “sexist” (and racist) Republicans for Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 election.
“I wasn’t surprised,” Biden said. “They went the route of, uh, the sexist route, all, the whole route. I mean, ‘this is a woman, she’s this, she’s that,’ uh, I mean, it really, I’ve never seen quite, uh, as successful and a consistent campaign undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country, and a woman of mixed race. And, uh, they, they, they played that to, uh, fairly well.” He went on to suggest that COVID-19 was partially to blame for making people too angry to appreciate his administration’s historic success.
It was one of the most coherent responses Biden would give through the hour-long interview, during which The View co-hosts constantly gushed about his “selfless” decision to withdraw despite his remarkable achievements and formidable intellect. Everyone laughed when Joy Behar wondered if Biden “could be the next pope.” The disgraced former president still believes he would have beaten Trump, appearing to imply that Harris only lost because Republicans attacked her for being a mixed-race woman. Biden attempted to lay out his case for why he would have won in 2024, but did not succeed.
“Look, I, you know, every time I’ve been on the show, which you’ve been, I’ve been fortunate to be on more than once, you, thanks for having me, is that we talk [indecipherable] you guys don’t focus on as much, and I think it’s good, um, polling numbers,” he said. “But, uh, let me put it this way. [Trump] has had the worst hundred days any president’s ever had.”
Asked if waiting so long to withdraw from the race hurt Harris’s chances of winning, Biden insisted that his VP was well-positioned due to the overwhelming greatness of his administration. “There were still six full months,” he said. “She was in every aspect, every decision I made, every decision we made. And I don’t think [mumbling], I hope I don’t, doesn’t sound the wrong way. I don’t think anybody thought we’d be as successful as we were.” He offered a lukewarm endorsement of Harris, who is deciding whether or not to run for governor of California or for president again in 2028. “I think she’s first rate, but we’ve got a lot of really good candidates as well,” Biden said.
Hours before the interview, Politico described the president’s appearance as a “chance for him to rebut criticism that he is in decline.” Biden slurred his way through most of his answers while repeatedly touting the “success” of an administration most Americans regard as one of the least successful in recent history. “As they say in Southerner, ‘We done pretty good,'” he garbled. “I mean it’s just, I just find it, well, I, all kidding aside, I don’t quite get the, the, uh, anyway. I shouldn’t get, I can be short.” On several occasions, Biden remarked that he wasn’t supposed to talk about a certain subject, but that didn’t stop him from doing it. “I’ve been advised not to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” he said. “The, uh, um, no one thought I could get passed an over trillion-dollar, over a trillion-dollar plan to rebuild the country. Well, we made a lot of commitments and, you know, billion-dollar tunnels going through the, for Amtrak, bridges, so on.”
Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden—widely believed to be the driving force behind his decision to seek reelection—joined the interview about half-way through and defended her husband against what The View co-hosts described as “allegations” of cognitive decline, referring to recent books about the 2024 election and the Democratic Party’s efforts to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline—which was obvious to most observers. “The people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us, and they didn’t see how Joe worked every single day,” she raved. “I mean, he’d get up, he’d put in a full day, and then at night I’d be in bed reading my book and he was still on the phone, reading his briefings, working with staff. I mean, it was nonstop.” Dr. Jill had intervened after Joe Biden tried (and failed) to answer the same question about the so-called allegations of decline. “There’s nothing to sustain that,” he said. “We went to work and we got it done, and, uh, you know, one of the things that, uh, that, well, I’m talking too long … the point of the matter is that I would, I would offer specific evidence, if we had time, [of] exactly what I got done when I was, supposedly, lost my cognitive capability.”
More: How Jill Biden’s Lust for Power Saved America
Another book, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, will be released later this month. The authors have promised to deliver an “unflinching and explosive reckoning” that will expose the “desperate efforts to hide the extent” of Biden’s “serious decline.” Biden’s return to the interview circuit, even though most Democrats want nothing to do with him, is believed to be part of a concerted effort to preemptively rebut the book, titled, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Biden recently hired a former aide, Chris Meagher, to advise him on public relations strategy. Meagher reportedly orchestrated the appearance on The View, a friendly where Biden was unlikely to face challenging questions.
That turned out to be the case. Whoopi Goldberg, for example, asked Biden why so many Democrats “bought into” the panic surrounding his disastrous debate performance in June 2024. Given the opportunity to deliver a message of “optimism” to the American people, Biden mumbled something about the late Pope Francis, whose successor was chosen moments after the interview ended. “We have to remember who the hell we are,” he said. “And by the way, the pope wondered who we were. Not a joke … I think he trusted me.”
More: Biden Defends Decision To Run Again Despite Age Concerns: I Was ‘So Successful’ It Was ‘Difficult To Walk Away’
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