The Irish Times view on the Biden ‘cover-up': symptom of a wider malaise
America has a gerontocracy problem. The current president and his immediate predecessor are the two oldest holders of the office in its 236-year history. Nancy Pelosi led congressional Democrats until the age of 82 and still sits in the House at the age of 85. The party's current leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is 74.
It is of course true that some people, including politicians, remain vigorous and intellectually agile well into their eighties. Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, shows no sign of diminishment at the age of 83. But it is also the case that US politics has suffeed a number of embarrassments over leaders who remained in office too long. Despite her obvious incapacity, California senator Diane Feinstein did not respond to pressure to retire, finally dying in office at the age of 90. Republican congresswoman Kay Granger kept her position on an important committee after checking into an assisted living facility with dementia.
The most egregious and damaging of all these cases is that of Joe Biden. A new book reveals the extent to which the 46th president's physical and cognitive decline was concealed from the American public by a coterie of family members and close advisers.
It is a tale of hubris, deception and political cowardice that casts a shadow over the Democratic party and a stain on Biden's long and honourable record of public service. After positive midterm election results in 2022, Biden and his circle convinced themselves that only he could defeat Donald Trump. They went to elaborate lengths to disguise his flagging reserves of physical and mental energy. And they attacked the reputations of anyone who dared to dissent.
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The public were not fooled. As the campaign got under way, poll after poll showed that voters, including Democrats, thought Biden was too old to run again. And yet the doomed project trundled on regardless until nemesis arrived with Biden's disastrous performance in the first presidential debate in June. Only then did senior party figures exert the necessary pressure for Biden to withdraw his candidacy. By then, it was too late.
Sunday's announcement of the former president's advanced prostate cancer may have brought messages of sympathy – including, unusually, from Trump – but should not be permitted to deflect the important and difficult questions raised by these revelations. Over the last few decades, the two traditional parties have been hollowed out while a combination of geographical polarisation and obscene amounts of donor money has rendered too many US politicians immune from challenge. The result is stagnation, corruption, demagoguery and disillusionment. The world's oldest representative democracy is gravely unwell and there is little evidence that any treatment is at hand to cure its ills.
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Irish Times
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- Irish Times
Mistakenly deported man Abrego Garcia brought back to US to face criminal charges
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Irish Times
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In just one day, the Musk-Trump spat shaved $34 billion from his personal net worth, the second-largest loss ever in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the 500 wealthiest people on the planet. The only bigger wealth hit: his own wipeout in November 2021. Tesla lost $153 billion of market value on Thursday, with shares reversing course on Friday after Musk began to simmer down. Musk has faced deep stretches of pain before. There are flanks of sceptics who have, over the years, called for his impending demise only to be proven wrong by the world's richest man and his cult following of fans and funders willing to throw ever-growing sums of money at his ambitions. [ Elon Musk has damaged himself and shows no signs of stopping Opens in new window ] Most famously, Tesla flirted with bankruptcy only to reverse course and become the biggest electric vehicle seller in the world. Musk's $44 billion purchase of X was widely panned as the company's debt languished on banks' books, only to see those fortunes reversed after Trump's election. 'Musk has a habit of teetering on the edge of destruction and pulling himself back just in the nick of time,' said Nancy Tengler, whose firm holds 3.5 per cent of its growth portfolio Tesla stock, in a Friday interview on Bloomberg Television. Tengler, chief executive and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, said her firm has been adding Tesla shares in recent months but now has a 'full position.' 'He needs to dial down the rhetoric and the drama and get back to the business,' she says, as investors own Tesla stock for growth, not for 'the histrionics.' To pull off a rebound this time around, Musk is going to have to convince people to start buying his electric vehicles at a faster clip and reverse the painful sales slide in the US, Europe and around the world. 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He is, however, thinking of getting rid of his Tesla. – Bloomberg
Irish Times
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Mr Trump's 'big, beautiful Bill' narrowly passed the House of Representatives last month and is now before the Senate, where Republicans say they will make further changes. Non-partisan analysts say the measure would add $2.4 trillion in debt over 10 years. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he has been texting with Mr Musk and hopes the dispute is resolved quickly. 'I don't argue with him about how to build rockets and I wish he wouldn't argue with me about how to craft legislation and pass it,' Mr Johnson said on CNBC. Mr Trump had initially stayed quiet while Mr Musk campaigned to torpedo the bill, but broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters he was 'very disappointed' in Mr Musk. 'Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,' he said. The pair then traded barbs on their social media platforms: Mr Trump's Truth Social and Mr Musk's X. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election,' wrote Musk, who spent nearly $300 million backing Mr Trump and other Republicans in last year's election. Mr Musk also asserted that Mr Trump's signature import tariffs would push the US into a recession and responded 'Yes' to a post on X saying Mr Trump should be impeached. That would be highly unlikely given Mr Trump's Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress. Mr Musk's SpaceX plays a critical role in the US government's space programme. When Mr Trump posted that he might cancel Mr Musk's contracts, the billionaire responded he would begin decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, the only US spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space Station. Later, Mr Musk backed away from that threat. In a sign of a possible detente, Musk subsequently wrote: 'You're not wrong' in response to billionaire investor Bill Ackman saying Mr Trump and Mr Musk should make peace. A prolonged feud could make it harder for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year's midterm elections if Mr Musk withholds financial support or other major Silicon Valley business leaders distance themselves from Trump. Mr Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending, and on Tuesday he called for 'all politicians who betrayed the American people' to be fired next year. His involvement with the Trump administration has provoked widespread protests at Tesla sites, driving down sales while investors fretted that Musk's attention was too divided. – Reuters
