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.

  • leadore@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Hell, he might be right (I doubt it but you never know). BUT better than either of those options would have been if he’d announced by 2023 that he would not be running for reelection (like he campaigned on!) so the Dems could have had a full field and competitive primaries. That would have given them the best chance to win (but would they have? kinda doubt that too).

    I DO agree with his understatement that his Garland decision was a mistake. Not just a mistake, a disaster!

    • ghen@sh.itjust.works
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      He could have stepped down in 2022, given Kamala his last two years, and she would still be eligible for two more terms after that. She would have had incumbency, experience, and a younger face than the oldest guy who ever ran for president.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    3 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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      2 days ago

      Not sour grapes.

      Pure fucking delusion and narcissism.

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

    • Omgboom@lemmy.zip
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      I mean he might have, a lot of people that voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Kamala in 2024 for various reasons. Trump did only very slightly better in 2024 than be did in 2020. Would the people who stayed home and didn’t vote for Kamala have gotten out and voted for Biden? Maybe. If anything though Biden should have dropped out sooner or not ran at all, the DNC should have fielded better candidates, instead they spent 4 years (longer) trying to strangle any progressives before they could become feasible candidates.

      • dhork@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        The Joe Biden who showed up in 2020 would have beaten Trump. Joe Biden in 2024 is not the same guy.

        The only real asset Joe had over Kamala, though, is a penis. For some voters, though, that’s enough to make them pick one and not the other.

          • Wooki@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Well that’s disturbing image I can’t get out of my head, lost circulation or just old?

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          For some voters, though, that’s enough to make them pick one and not the other.

          Those voters would’ve picked Trump over Biden anyway. The Democrats will never, ever win by falling over themselves to court those types of voters at the expense of progressives and leftists.

          • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
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            3 days ago

            But Liz Cheney supported Kamala…

            Look at all these Republicans who say, “Don’t vote for Trump.”

            Surely that’ll work…

        • BussyCat@lemmy.world
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          One of the Republican talking points was that Kamala never won a primary and just snuck in. Not that it mattered for her actual policies but more so it was another reason for votor apathy

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        3 days ago

        A lot of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 spent the next four years getting poorer.

        Kamala lost because she promised to be four more years of the same thing.

        • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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          I actually think that Biden won the election because of the primary campaign against Bernie. Bernie shifted the platform left and attracted young voters to the party that subsequently voted for Biden in the general election (even if they had to hold their noses). Nothing like a primary to unite voters behind the candidate.

    • garretble@lemmy.world
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      4 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.

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      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

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        Eh, does it? The whole reason he was pushed out was because he was a combination of personally incoherent and organizationally sheltered from reality. His opinion on his own greatness has little value.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Biden: “I’m a one term president, stability in crisis.”

    Biden: “I don’t care, fuck it, you only live once, I’m running again!”

    People: “You said you were a one term canidate, you’re old, you didn’t do COVID well, you broke up strikes, you aren’t protecting women’s rights, trans people are under attack, Mexicans are still in cages at the border, Ukraine could use more help, you’re doing a bad job at stopping weapons to Israel, rent is gone up, inflation is stopped bu not down, groceries are still expensive…”

    Biden: “Shut up Jack, check this out!”

    [“Primaries” give him the win, flops at debate, hands things to Harris]

    Biden: “Well I did what I could do. …I would have won anyways, why be consistant with what I say and do? Now lemme pardon my son after I said I wouldn’t.”

    • Yewb@lemmy.world
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      Of all things the pardon of his son is reasonable that guy had a whole culture of assholes trying to find anything to get him in jail just to hurt Biden.

      Then we find out the basis of the entire hunter controversy was a lie and the guy admitted it was a lie after the election.

      So they ended up getting for like tax evasion I would be willing to bet 90% of congress would be guilty of similar things if brought under the same scrutiny.

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
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    For an ancient venal egotist like Joe, the fact that Kamala lost is close to a best case scenario. He would’ve gotten completely waxed if he had stayed in… but now he gets to say he was forced aside by the party leaders (Pelosi, the Obamas etc.) and that is completely verifiably true, but he also gets to claim he totally would’ve won, which is very likely not true, but now we will never know.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        Remember how there was already a document produced by a special prosecutor that said there were crimes committed but a sitting president couldn’t be prosecuted? Just fucking memory holed by Garland’s DOJ. He literally could have taken that up the day he was confirmed.

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      I’d say his first mistake was choosing Garland. Biden then made a second mistake when he didn’t immediately fire Garland as soon as it became obvious that Garland wasn’t going to do his job.

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          No, he literally said his mistake was selecting Garland. There were many other mistakes, and opportunities for him to push Garland even after he had been selected.

          That’s the taking responsibility equivalent of “I’m sorry you feel that way” apology.

  • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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    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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      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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      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.

    • xor@lemm.ee
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      of course he forgot… he forgets all sorts of things….

  • WilderSeek@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    He likely would not have won. It surprises me how discrepancies in this election haven’t been questioned, but at this point it may not matter. As for his choice of Merrick Garland. Yeah, that and not really doing much about unseating DeJoy was a mistake.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    “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.

      • Snapz@lemmy.world
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        Garland made a lot of sense in theory. Obama had picked him first and he had been denied his likely singular life’s goal by obstructionist gop with trump egging it on. He should have sought justice for this country, while feeling the cathartic release of righting his personal wrongs.

        But he didn’t, because he’s feckless and an absolute waste of that historical moment.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          No, no it didn’t, because they were picked for different roles with different political goals. Obama picked him to make it look as ridiculous as possible when Republicans refused to seat him. The argument was that Garland was so inoffensive to Republicans that their opposition was irrational. That’s not an argument Biden needed to make when picking his AG after a criminal president.

          It was a totally braindead “wouldn’t this be poetic” move without any consideration for what type of person was actually needed in the position and how that was different from Obama’s SC pick.

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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      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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        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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        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.