Biden dare not admit he put Trump in the White House

Telegraph

07-05-2025

Joe Biden still does not accept any blame for his party's catastrophic election defeat in November.
Some 183 days on from the seismic shift back towards Donald Trump, the 82-year-old says that Kamala Harris had plenty of time and money to campaign to beat the current US president.
To this day, his refusal to acknowledge any role in Mr Trump's landslide victory has not subsided. He cannot accept that he handed back the keys to the White House to Mr Trump.
In his first interview since the US presidential election, Mr Biden continued to skirt around criticisms of his leadership, including concerns over his cognitive abilities.
'[I don't see] how that would've made much of a difference,' he said, in response to suggestions that he left Ms Harris with too little time to campaign.
'We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she was fully-funded.'
He also claimed: 'What we had set out to do, no one thought we could do.
'And we had become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say: 'No, I'm going to stop now.' ... It was a hard decision.'
It was strange that the former US president's first interview since stepping down was with the BBC.
The broadcaster's Nick Robinson was dispatched to Delaware, the state where Mr Biden studied and later served as a senator.
Perhaps the decision to speak to a British outlet was a deliberate snub to the American publications and television stations that sought to blame him for the Democratic defeat.
The dust had barely settled on the Democrat's presidential election defeat before the finger pointing started between Ms Harris and Mr Biden.
Aides to Mr Harris quickly mobilised to blame the outgoing president, claiming he clung to the hope he could beat Mr Trump for too long before eventually standing down from the race.
Mr Biden had billed himself as a man who could beat Mr Trump, and believes that he was denied that opportunity for a second time by his own party.
Democrat donors went further to accuse Mr Biden of 'stupidity and selfishness' for deciding to run again.
His delayed decision to step down from the race left Ms Harris only 107 days between becoming the new Democratic nominee and election day.
Mr Biden's acolytes soon blamed Barack Obama, the former US president, for forcing him out, as well as Ms Harris for running a poor campaign.
To this day, his refusal to acknowledge any role in Mr Trump's landslide victory has not subsided.
Stubborn self-belief
In his first public address from the White House's Rose Garden, he accepted the sanctity of Mr Trump's victory – a nod to the current US president's refusal to concede his own defeat to Mr Biden in 2020.
But the outgoing commander-in-chief did not concede any blame for the Democratic defeat.
The former US president would compromise his shtick – as the only man to defeat Mr Trump in an election – should he choose to admit the full extent of his role.
Mr Biden believes that he left the United States, Europe and Ukraine in a better place after his four years in office.
Since taking power, Mr Trump has sought to dismantle, in record time, anything that was achieved at home or abroad by his predecessor.
This has represented a bitter pill for Mr Biden, who argued in that Rose Garden speech that many of his policy decisions won't be felt by the American electorate for decades to come.
But ultimately it was that stubborn self-belief, which still lingers, that denies him from admitting his role in the Democratic defeat.
He believed that his political career had been governed by the Biden family motto 'when you get knocked down, get back up again'.
Overcoming tragedies, such as the death of his son Beau, were a hallmark of that journey to the White House.
And on leaving it, Mr Biden still believes that his defeat to Mr Trump is simply another setback that can be overcome like those that came before.