Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

The US president has reportedly also said he 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 6 January 2021 insurrection while presiding over a justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.

With just more than three weeks of his single-term presidency remaining, Biden’s reported rueful reflections are revealed in a Washington Post profile that contains the clearest signs yet that he thinks he erred in withdrawing his candidacy in July after a woeful debate performance against his rival for the White House, Trump, the previous month.

    • garretble@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I agree.

      They would have kept showing that first debate performance over and over as a reason Joe is too old, and it would have worked.

    • Aolley@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I mean he already had, and if he had capitalized on how a LOSER was going to try and LOSE again because he was a huge loser I think he might have swayed many of the minds

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      20 days ago

      Depends how senile he would be or not be. What killed him was the debate, if there was another one and he was fully fine, then yeah a decent chance.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      It’s been absolutely appalling how long it has taken to prosecute Trump.
      Many cases should have been ready the second he was no-longer president.
      All the lame considerations about looks and not getting involved is idiotic. if the politicians in power don’t work to defend democracy, who else should?
      The left have been screaming for Democrats to wake up for more than a decade, but they behave like a party with dementia that doesn’t understand what’s going on around them.
      As AOC has stated multiple times, people will come to vote for you, if you give them a good enough reason for it. Harris was the better more moderate candidate. But I think most Americans want more, they want real change. Like better healthcare, environment protection, democracy etc.
      Preventing a fascist narcissist becoming president apparently wasn’t enough?!

      But maybe I’m wrong, maybe the majority of Americans prefer to live with the danger of not receiving healthcare, and the danger of being financially ruined by healthcare bills. Rather than living in a “socialist hellhole” where society actually care about the citizens?

      The number one cause for bankruptcies in USA is healthcare bills.

  • Erasmus@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Mr. I’m only gonna be a one term President seems to have a short memory, yet again.

    Him and his staff misled and dragged their feet about his intentions early in then he went full out with ‘no I’m gonna run fuck you all’ and it turned into a disaster.

    This is just one of the problems with the current Democratic Party. No one will work with and groom the upcoming young members to take control. The older party members literally do not have a clue what it means to step aside for the good of the party and the good of the country.

    • Xanthobilly@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I wish this comment was higher. Biden betrayed the party and its chances of defeating Trump the moment he won the 2020 election and chose to not start preparing the nation on Jan 20th 2021 for a younger generation to lead. Merrick fucking Garland was the other, related, and just as large mistake. That one is totally on him.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    “Benedict Arnold” developed a clear connotation over time. The same needs to become true for “Merrick Garland”. History will remember him as a coward beyond measure and a key to enabling trump’s final push to end American democracy.

    Fuck Merrick Garland, without exception.

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      He spent so much time trying to make a good legacy that he forgot to actually do the right thing in the moment.

      Garland knew he’d be accused of bias and selective prosecution, so Garland took slow and deliberate steps to make an ironclad case… only to be accused of bias anyway, and doing it so slowly that the charges expired.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Garland was hired to slow walk the case so Biden could run as second worst to Trump again.

      • Snapz@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        What would have made him a good Supreme Court Justice made him a HORRIBLE attorney general.

        His tenure was so horribly handled though, that I can’t help but suspect some actual intent… Otherwise, Im I’m left to conclude that he was just that impotent and cowardly. There’s no way he was that lost on what this moment was - He had an unquestionable historical mandate to act against an insurrection at the US Capitol, with police officers being beaten and stabbed with US flags on sharpened poles, all broadcast live across every channel, in full HD. He is a failure on an unimaginable scale that spans all recorded time and space. He’s a fucking dunce.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    So… I take it he’s completely forgotten that disastrous debate by now huh? It was pretty clear to even the most fervent Biden supporters that he wasn’t going to win. When even those folks were telling him to resign, it as done by that point.

    If anything, staying in would’ve driven more people to Trump or caused them to stay home due to disillusionment.

    • normalexit@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      It was painful to watch. It’s even more painful that he put us in this position. Now he is rubbing salt in the wound.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      He certainly seemed like a patient who had escaped the memory care unit. I still remember my wife came in to see how it was going, she saw my face and turned right around. There just wasn’t any recovery to that. I would not have been surprised if Adult Protective Services had showed up on that stage.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    I would say “wow, the dementia is even farther along than we realized” but it’s likely the entire neoliberal faction that will be determined to come to this erroneous conclusion. They will grasp at any straw, even racist/sexist ones, in order to avoid admitting that the electorate is crying out for anti-corporate change.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        Yes, I know what neoliberalism is and yes, I really do mean that.

        The dominant faction of the Democratic Party is, in fact, neoliberal. As a result, the party’s platform as a whole supports free-market capitalism, free trade, low regulations, weak worker protections, etc.

        That’s why (for example) Hillary Clinton championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and why politicians like Elizabeth Warren and AOC who care about things like workers’ rights and Wall Street reform are among the minority within the party.

        Neoliberals are guys like Elon Musk.

        No, Neoliberals are guys like Elon Musk pretended to be before he came out as full-blown fascist.

        • andxz@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Thank you for literally being the first person I’ve ever seen online that actually seems to know what Warren stands for. Not exaggerating even in the slightest, either.

          She could’ve been president, back when it would’ve mattered.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          No you don’t. You just want a word for super evil. The TPP is not in any way, shape, or form Neoliberal. And the Democrats just finished four years of fighting tooth and nail to get more regulation of industry into place. I’m not a fan of them but this is just ridiculous.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            The TPP is not in any way, shape, or form Neoliberal.

            This just proves you have no clue whatsoever what neoliberalism is.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        Oh dude lemmy has decided that there are no normal liberals left. It’s progressives and neoliberals. And no amount of reasoning, showing them academic materials, or engaging with the tenets of the ideologies will shift it. Neoliberals is the new “rich people I don’t like” label.

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Hey, hey. Rude of you to call the guy who was supposed to save us from another 4 years of Trump but then delivered it anyways a failure. All he did was tread water for 4 years and then hang on to power way too long, simultaneously tanking his own campaign, and making it much more difficult for someone to follow him.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    No, all the problems left of fascists have with Kamala were even moreso with him. The only way Democrats could have won was to hold a fair primary which they haven’t done in a long time. They needed to get people voting for a candidate and not against the other guy which has been the strategy of both parties for ages, but doesn’t work well when one side has people voting for him and your side actually wanted to vote against you, but were never given an alternate.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    This ghoul was propped up in 2020 with the full force of the party and then won thanks to covid, but he thinks he’s some hero. Democrats lost in 2024 in large part thanks to him. Fuck you biden, you racist, genocidal, and power-hungry piece of shit.

    • TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Things would have likely gone a lot better if the Ds would have had an actual primary. It’s so frustrating.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    on no fucking planet is this the case. Also, him hanging on as long as he did, didn’t help things. It’s not like the Harris campaign did themselves any favors, but was clear not one person the the management caste of the DNC really gave a fuck about winning.

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      They don’t care about winning, because it changes nothing for them. If they win, they keep taking kickbacks and bribes. If they lose, they keep taking kickbacks and bribes.

      If they win, they wring their hands about how they can’t do what they want, so it’s not even worth trying. If they lose, they wring their hands about things they can’t stop, so it’s not even worth trying.

      It’s win-win for them. It’s lose-lose for us.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      21 days ago

      Oh, they wanted to win but only on their terms.

      They seem to fundamentally believe the electorate are all dumb as fuck and everything would be so much better if they just did as they were told.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        They certainly seem to believe that the electorate love voting for the second stinkiest turd.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Sour grapes. There are no guarantees he would have won, and the propaganda machine would have played almost exactly the same tune it did for Harris. Eggs, israel, gas prices, too old…

    People stayed home. That’s why we got trump.

    • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Not sour grapes.

      Pure fucking delusion and narcissism.

      We all watched the debate. There was no coming back from that.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    That’s okay Joe, there is a lot of regret about your entire administration, and career, on all sides.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    I’m reading the WaPo article it’s based on and guys this is some pure grade bullshit. They start with 5d Chess; then they say people were unable to hear about his victories because of the media, they were unable to appreciate the best Covid recovery in the world; and yes, he claims he could have beaten Trump.

    It’s an incredibly flattering article for a man who was so far out of touch he called outrage over inflation the best recovery in the world. Yeah they managed a soft landing, but that shit didn’t trickle down. We’re on our second year of record breaking increases in homeless people. We don’t give a goddamn shit about the stock market when we’re shopping for used Recreational Vehicles to use as our primary housing. If families are choosing between utilities, rent, and food, then your Bidenomics message is going to do worse than fall flat, it’s going to blow up in your face.

    And the whole style over substance thing. Just holy shit batman, he broke the strike of workers who were (and are still) massively abused. He did that on prime time television. And then he negotiated for the office worker parts of the unions to get improvements and it’s a complete submarine. Not only did he do the bad, he did no PR damage control, not even to show what little he gave the workers after he shut down their strike. At one point in the WaPo article someone mentions that Biden tried to run the country like it was 1972, and I agree with that statement.

    Which brings us to the crux of his sins as a leader. He was unwilling to listen to the people he was supposed to be leading. At every turn he decided that he and his high paid advisors from the corporate world knew better then the people actually struggling. He might have thought he was playing 5d chess but he was losing at checkers… badly.