Welcome to Litsy!

In the past year I‘ve learned I love books about presidential elections. It‘s crazy how much insiders share once the campaigns are over. This one was a bit raw but it also served as therapy in a way. In some ways the book was too polite . It could have been more gossipy and more honest. Biden was doing really weird things in early 2022 if not before and the media mostly ignored it. How anyone ever thought “this guy should run,” I don‘t understand

Joe Biden was the best and most underrated president of my lifetime. My respect for him grew even deeper when he finally dropped out of the race. But then I read this book, and, sadly, that level of respect has now plummeted. Why did he not drop out sooner? How deep did his delusions run? More importantly, why didn't anyone stop him? This book is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. #2025Book22

“Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?“ Hostin followed up. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,“ Harris said, in perhaps the worst moment of her short campaign. Most of the public thought the country was on the wrong track, and she was presenting herself quite literally as “more of the same.“ She tried to recover, but it was too late: She'd just provided new footage for a ...

Nancy Pelosi sat down and wrote the president a letter on her stationary.
“A master class press conference showing mastery of foreign policy,“ she wrote of the NATO event. “A positive grassroots event in Detroit. Not a reason to stay, but a way to go out on top.“

After the debate, Moulton had approached an irreverent colleague on the floor of the House. “What did you think of that performance?“ he asked him.
“We need to sub in someone with more energy,“ the other congressman said sardonically. “Like Bill Pascrell.“
Pascrell, an eighty-seven-year-old New Jersey Democrat, was sickly and just weeks away from death. It was a dark joke, but Democrats were in a dark place.

Emmanuel noted that Biden's “cohorts have told us that he's healthy for over a year.“ Pointedly, he added, “I had a father who died at ninety-two, but at eighty-one I took away his car.“

“Well, I'm pissed off at the Founding Fathers,“ Ari Emanuel said. “They had the start date of thirty-five; they just didn't give us the end date.“

“They did such a disservice to Joe Biden and the country,“ Axelrod later said. “The family as well. I don't understand how you could see him in the condition he's in and think, 'Yeah, you oughta go run for president again.' To do that to someone you love?“

It was clear early on that Biden needed to acknowledge that prices were too high and needed to come down,“ one pollster said. “But Donilon and others at the White House would refuse. They said if we acknowledged it, no one would remember anything else.“
This instruction came from Biden himself, they were told.

Biden didn't always like getting notes on his delivery but would listen to someone like Spielberg. The famous director would also coach the president before speeches like the State of the Union. Katzenberg hoped that voters' age concerns about Biden could be assuaged with a little Hollywood magic.

“How bad is your memory?“ asked a reporter from Fox.
“My memory is so bad, I let you speak,“ Biden snapped. 😅

Trying to understand a point in time in 2013, he asked, “Well, if it was 2013--when did I stop being vice president?“
“2017,“ a White House lawyer reminded him.
At another moment, asked about a “Facts First“ file with documents “related to Afghanistan from 2009,“ Biden asked, “I'm, at this stage, in 2009, am I still vice president?“

A year later, that official told us, “I blame his inner circle, and I blame him. What utter and total hubris not to step aside and be a one-term president, as he said he would, and have an open primary when there was time to let the process play out. Even though he did so many good things for this country, I can never forgive him.“

Still, he had beaten Trump, and he wasn't confident that she could. He privately called her a “work in progress.“ It became an additional rationalization for his reelection run: There was no plan B.

To the Biden team, Harris was a regular headache. She often shied away from politically tough assignments when Biden had accepted such assignments as vice president. She even turned down seemingly simple asks, such as headlining DC's Gridiron Club dinner. She had considerable turnover, as her aides tired of what they called her “prosecuting the staff“ style. And her cautious nature could reach the point of parody.

Given the president's age, Harris's team thought that building the vice president up should have been a priority, but many on the Biden team didn't agree. Harris aides began dividing Biden advisers between the helpful and what one called “the cabal of the unhelpful.“

Biden's advisers did not fully trust her. Harris and her advisers felt it. Her aides got the impression that doing more than the bare minimum to help her was considered an act of disloyalty to Biden. Some of that culture carried over into the White House.

In Iowa, at an April 2022 event about ethanol, Biden plodded through a list of policy priorities but eventually admitted: “I'm starting to bore myself here. But this is important stuff, I think.“ Aides watching the speech knew how much effort Biden had put into prep but noted that even he seemed to sense he wasn't landing the argument.

Still, some doctors speculated that the only reason to perform a neurological test but not a cognitive one was if you feared the results.

I find this book to be further proof that politics on both sides of the American spectrum are corrupt. In our politically polarized climate, it‘s more important than ever that we hold all politicians accountable, particularly those we elect to serve us. Turning a blind eye (in this case, to Biden‘s obvious decline) irrevocably damages the trust American people have in our political framework.

Accountability ✨ Delusion ✨ Cover-Up

Even knowing most of what this book says, reading the details in real time is gripping. And of course we all know the ending, no twists, no surprises. There are so many what-ifs, so many sad stories. I never read books like this, but I‘m glad I read this one.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Book was good, contents were infuriating. Behind the scenes/insider accounts of just how diminished Joe Biden was during his presidency and the disastrous decision-making that led him to run for a second term and stay in the race so long after it was clear he wasn‘t up to it. A national tragedy.

It's worth noting that boiling frog syndrome is apocryphal. When scientists tried to replicate the parable in real life, their research subjects leaped out of the pot.

One senior White House aide who left because they didn't think Biden should run again confessed to us that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn't realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.“

Fate had spent the better part of the last half century throwing everything it could at him, the worst tragedies imaginable. And every goddamn time, he got up. Every. Goddamn. Time.