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JOE BIDEN HAS acknowledged that he ran as a “transitional candidate” in the 2020 US presidential election, but changed his mind due to how “divided” politics has become in the country.
The US President said he is “reluctant to walk away” now because there is “more to do”.
He was speaking to BET News’s Ed Gordon for a sit-down interview for ‘Black America Votes: The Biden Special’, which will air in full later today.
In a clip from the special, Biden said: “When I originally ran, you may remember Ed, I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought that I’d be able to move from this just pass it on to someone else, but I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided.
“And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom, and I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country, in spite of the fact that we were told we couldn’t get it done.
But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from that.
Biden’s age and his fitness to complete another term has dominated the headlines around his campaign, which amplified after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last month.
Numerous Democrats have called for him to step down, including former speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and actor George Clooney, who is a longtime supporter and fundraiser.
The 81-year-old president has already acknowledged his poor debate performance but has insisted several times that he is staying in the race.
In the BET interview, Biden said he “made a serious mistake” in the debate, and seemingly speaking about what would make him drop out of the race, said: “If I had some medical condition that emerged. If doctors came to me and said: ‘You got this problem, that problem.’”
When asked about reproductive rights and restoring Roe V. Wade, which he has committed to doing if reelected, Biden warned about the possibility of Trump being reelected and appointing two more judges to the US Supreme Court.
The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined legal abortions across all 50 states, in June 2022. Since then, some 20 states, mostly in the South and Midwest, have prohibited abortion outright or severely restricted access.
This year, the court significantly rolled back the power of federal agencies, while also partially ruling in early July in favour of Trump’s immunity claims.
Of the nine current US Supreme Court justices, six were appointed by Republican presidents. Trump appointed three – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. This was the most by any president since Ronald Reagan, who appointed four.
“The Supreme Court did it. Trump appointed the Supreme Court with the express purpose of doing it,” Biden said, referring to the overturning of Roe V Wade.
“There’s gonna probably be two more appointments to the court,” Biden explained, saying two judges will probably retire. “Just imagine if he has two more appointments on that court, what that means forever.”
US media, citing unnamed sources familiar with the planning, has reported that Biden is weighing proposals to reform the Supreme Court, including possible term limits and a new ethics code for the conservative-dominated bench.
He has previously resisted calls to overhaul or reform the court of nine lifetime-appointed justices, but that may be changing.
It was unclear whether Biden would come out in support of the measures in the near future or in his second term if he wins the presidential election in November, the New York Times reported.
However, the measures Biden is reportedly considering – including backing a constitutional amendment that would overturn the court’s ruling on presidential immunity – would require bipartisan congressional support that is almost certainly out of reach.
Amid the legal setbacks the Supreme Court has handed down to Democrats, it has also recently been engulfed in ethics scandals.
Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas refused to step aside on cases related to the 2020 election, even as flags linked to Trump’s false election claims were discovered to be flown outside Alito’s home, and Thomas’s wife was part of Trump’s effort to overturn the vote result.
With reporting from © AFP 2024
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Joe your part of the problem, not the solution
@Ger Whelan: Better than the other option anytime.
@William Slevin: That’s why he has a team around him.
Trump’s team on the other hand are pointless.
If they disagree with him or offer an opposing view he sacks them and berates them on social media.
@Stanley Marsh: a team like around him that protects the border, ex president’s, transportation, education………what a team
@William Slevin: what wars did trump pull out of in his first term? None. He ramped up the drone strikes exponentially. Backed the saudis in brutal attacks on yemen. Bombed Syria.Was too much of a fanny to pull soldiers out of Afghanistan but lied constantly that he would. Left it to biden and then reverted to his usual ditch hurling.
@William Slevin: I agree that Biden lying in a mortuay freezer for the next 4 years and his team running the country would be better for the US than Trump.
By the admission of those around him the man’s a narcissist, unhinged, reprehensible 1d10t.
@Stanley Marsh: very undemocratic that you’d rather the country be ran by unelected staffers. I find it funny that the people most opposed to Trump claim he’ll be the end of democracy yet he has been the target of things that are actual threats to democracy. Multiple politically motivated prosecutions, assassination attempt, attempts to get him removed from ballots.
@John K: you should be exempt from prosecution for irrefutable recorded proof of attempted election fraud, and using campaign funds to pay off ex pornstars, or even sexual assault, for which was found civilly liable by a jury of his peers, all because of his political career so?
@James T.Kirk: that’s the problem! In a population of 300 million + this is what you have to offer your country? While I supported him in 2020 because really who needed another term of the dictator wannabe orange man but now this is ridiculous, he needs to step down. He is not fit to run for office anymore. Doesn’t mean you are quitting it means you accept your limitations. He is hanging Trump the election and that sociopath is not fit to run a pub, let alone a bloody country. New parties are needed and new candidates outside of the either way too far right parties or too far left parties. America truly is a s**t show!
@HAC: that was handing not hanging!
@John K: I never said Trump would be the end of democracy.
@Stanley Marsh: I know you didn’t, you said a team of unelected staffers would be better than Trump. Very pro democracy of you.
@William Slevin: Trumps agreement with the taliban for the pull out was widely viewed as a disaster that offered the taliban legitimacy and put them in the strongest military position they were in since pre 9/11. You are just rattling off meaningless phrases from the MAGA glossary and blaming other people for decisions that Trump had the last word on. If you are going to defend him to the hilt, at least know a thing or two about his time in office. He won’t drain the swamp. Just refill it, with yes men who have to swear fealty to him under project 2025. What a beacon of democracy he is.
@James T.Kirk: Would getting a better candidate not be the better option for the democratic party.
@John K: And I stand by that statement. In fact I think my 14 year old daughter with the proper team around her would be much better than Trump.
However democracy will rightly prevale and Trump will more than likely become president.
However that doesn’t negate my original statement.
@William Slevin: @William Slevin: Trump agreed to surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban. He agreed the timeline, and he released from prisons all those Taliban fighters who went on to overthrow the Afghan government.
And Biden did not plan the US military withdrawal – the US military did all that.
While trying not to escalate the fiasco that Trump had created into another war.
@William Slevin: no I really haven’t hun, check yourself. did he not try to overturn a democratic election result? Yes, he did. It was televised. You aren’t that uneducated are you that you don’t believe what you see with your own eyes? Pretty sure that’s what Hitler did, so yes, wannabe dictator is exactly the right name to call him.
@Setanta O’Toole: To be fair, the only alternative to the USA pulling out of Afganistan, was the USA staying in Afghanistan and continuing the forever war for another few decades.
Leaving Afghanistan meant handing back control of the country to the Taliban and insurgents and their supporters, because like it or not, the majority of people in Afghanistan are the Taliban, insurgents and people that support them.
The mythical Afghan people that were crying out for the USA to deliver them freedom and democracy, were and are, some between a small minority and nonexistent.
The only thing left to do for this decent man is to hand the presidency over to a society where half the people would prefer to hear about how great America is than hear about the Earth-on-fire narratives and control of human behaviour.
Maybe many people in the Journal comment section underestimate the reactionary politics out there, even when some Journal commenters do object without fundamentally changing the academic/political/media dynamics. This feeds society with dire predictions about its future based on the most spurious assertions of a subculture that went mainstream.
An authoritarian political leader or an authoritarian academic community, take your pick?.
Put an AR-15-style rifle in the hands of a young person with flawed convictions about things, and awful events happen with unforeseen outcomes.
If you put a keyboard and the Internet in front of a childish person, that accounts for many comments here with no effect, at least on me.
Put astronomy in the hands of an experimental theorist like Newton and mathematical modelling and catastrophic things happen in society, slowly at first but with increasing instability.
Some commenters realise we are at a historic juncture in our own and European society with opportunities to stabilise perspectives.
@Gerald Kelleher: stop posting please you hurt my brain
@Martin Curtin:
Don’t read it or mute the comments; what is relatively reasonable to some is crude and cruel to those who want to deal with issues at their lower level of consideration. Your brain doesn’t hurt; your perceptive abilities are dormant and unused, so waking people out of their apathy can be a painful experience.
People don’t want to hear about the hellish conditions in Southern Europe, but then again, they probably don’t want to hear about a Mediterranean climate either. People in America don’t want to hear about the Earth-on-fire and react against a political class that follows the modellers, but neither do these people want to deal with experimental modelling, much like you.
I think people can do better than being Royal Society rednecks.
@jak: now that was funny
The American people will pass their verdict shortly!
@Brian Hunt: did they take a laxative or something?
@Setanta O’Toole: Hilarious!
@Setanta O’Toole: they did indeed and they are about to fill the bowel. The dodgy curry of the past four years is about to pass.
@Oh Mammy: replaced by another old f*ck l’orange.
@Setanta O’Toole: all that dodgy.food is interfering with your ability to think independently.and critically. Such a shame.
@Oh Mammy: all the stuff your swallowing is easily digestable, and tends to repeat. The exact opposite of thinking independently.
Joe wont go! Will be interesting at least when trump gets elected. Surely he, ll want revenge onmore than just political enemies. What about bankers who refused him loans, ceo s of corps who ridiculed him. Will there be a huge flight of capital out of US?
@William Slevin: as if he had their interests in mind! Only the rich will benefit from a Trump presidency.
@Britta Flynn: isn’t that the same in every country??
@bruce banner: No done yet, Joe just Biden his time.
@Britta Flynn: Because the poor are benefiting from Biden’s presidency?. The average American household are near poverty levels. They are struggling. Then they see Biden promising Billions for Ukraine and Israel while they struggle. It’s no wonder they are looking to Trump who’s promising to put them first. Not that he will but he’s still promising it while Biden is backing wars with American money
@Britta Flynn: on the contrary it’s rich lawyers, doctors, bankers etc who benefit under biden and blue collar workers who want trump back, if you knew anything you’d know this
@bruce banner: Capitalists love fascism.
Until they discover that they do not control it, and become victims too.
It is ego at this stage. He can’t surely think he’s the best candidate.
Probably a couple of billion going to be spent on the election campaigns of both of these….neither is worth a dollar.
@Dere: That is the result of Republican Party control of the US Supreme Court, a court that has deemed corporations to be people, a court whose decisions have allowed vast sums to be used to support political parties, a court that twists and buckles the meaning of words to the benefit of one group in particular.
The transition from order to chaos is complete.
have your say