Pardon Who? Hunter Biden Case Renews Ethical Debate Over Use And Limits Of Peculiar Presidential Power

BY SCOTT DAVIDSON

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY,

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

The decision by President Joe Biden to pardon his son, Hunter, despite previously suggesting he would not do so, has reopened debate over the use of the presidential pardon.

Hunter Biden will be spared potential jail time not simply over his convictions for gun and tax offenses, but any “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period Jan. 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

During his first tenure in the White House, Donald Trump issued a total of 144 pardons. Following Biden’s move to pardon his son, Trump raised the issue of those convicted over involvement in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, raising expectations that he may use the pardon in their cases – something Trump has repeatedly promised to do.

But should the pardon power be solely up to the president’s discretion? Or should there be restrictions on who can be granted a pardon?

As a scholar of ethics and political philosophy, I find that much of the public debate around pardons needs to be framed within a more fundamental question: Should there be a presidential pardon power at all in a democracy governed by the rule of law? What, after all, is the purpose of a pardon?

From royal roots…

Black’s Law Dictionary, the go-to book for legal terms, defines the pardon power as, “an act of grace…which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.” Although the power to pardon is probably as old as politics, the roots of the presidential pardon in the U.S. can be traced back to English law.

The English Parliament legally placed an absolute pardon power in the hands of the monarch in 1535 during the reign of King Henry VIII. In the centuries that followed, however, Parliament imposed some limitations on this power, such as preventing pardons of outrageous crimes and pardons during an impeachment.

The Founding Fathers followed the English model in establishing the powers of the executive branch in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Section 2 of that article specifically grants the president the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States” and acknowledges one limitation to this power “in cases of impeachment.”

But the anti-democratic roots of the pardon power were a point of contention during the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. In a 1788 debate, Virginia delegate George Mason, for example, said that the president “ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic.”

Mason’s concern clearly identifies this vestige of the absolute powers of the English monarchy as a potential threat to the new democracy. In reply, based on the assumption that the president would exercise this power cautiously, James Madison contended that the restriction on the pardon power in cases of impeachment would be a sufficient safeguard against future presidential abuse.

…to religious reasoning

The political concept of pardon is linked with the theological concept of divine mercy or the charity of an all-powerful God.

Pardon, as Supreme Court Justice Marshall noted in the 1833 United States v. Wilson ruling, is defined as “an act of grace.” Just as in the Abrahamic faiths – Islam, Judaism and Christianity – God has the power to give and to take life, kings wield the power to take life through executions and to grant life through the exercise of pardons.

Echoing the command of the Lord’s Prayer “to forgive the trespasses of others,” English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ book “Leviathan” asserts that the sovereign ought to display grace by pardoning the offenses of those who, repenting those offenses, want pardon.

Yet, this analogy with divine mercy for all individuals collides with the legal principle of treating different cases differently. If all trespasses were forgiven, pardon would be granted to all crimes equally.

There would be no need for distinctions between the wrongly and the rightly convicted or the repentant and unrepentant criminal. All would be forgiven equally. Universal pardon thus violates the legal principle that each individual should receive their due. In the eyes of law, it is impossible to pardon everything and everyone.

The incognito of pardon

What Hobbes recognized, if imperfectly, is that the power of pardon is just as essential to political life as to our personal lives. It helps to overcome the antagonisms of the past and opens a path to peace and reconciliation with others. The act of forgiving, as political theorist Hannah Arendt puts it, allows us “to begin again” and to create a new future together.

But how can we reconcile this need for pardon with the impossibility to forgive everything?

One answer can be found in the work of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur talks about the “incognito of forgiveness” – “forgiveness” literally translates to “pardon” in French. Acknowledging the difficulty of turning pardon into a universal legal rule or norm, Ricoeur suggests that pardon can exist only as an exception to legal rules and institutions.

Pardon, in Ricoeur’s words, “can find refuge only in gestures incapable of being transformed into institutions. These gestures…designate the ineluctable space of consideration due to every human being, in particular to the guilty.” In other words, it has to fly under the radar of rules and institutions.

This insight is alluded to by Justice Marshall in his Wilson ruling. Marshall states that pardon is “the private, though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended, and not communicated officially to the Court.” The pardon remains incognito, or under the radar, in the sense that it is an extra-legal act that does not pass through legal institutions.

In these last days of the Biden administration, this incognito of pardon offers an important reminder of the need for pardon as well as its limitations. The democratic transfer of power always involves an implicit act of pardon that remains incognito. It allows for a fresh start in which society can acknowledge the past transgressions of an outgoing administration, but move on with the hope to begin again.

Though critics of the president may reject individual acts of pardon, especially involving family members, society should not give up on the power of pardon itself: It brings a renewal of hope to democracy.

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Things To Know About The Largest US-Russia Prisoner Swap In Post-Soviet History

This image released by the White House shows Evan Gershkovich, left, Alsu Kurmasheva, right, and Paul Whelan, second from right, and others aboard a plane, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, following their release from Russian captivity. (White House via AP)

BY ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Russia on Thursday completed their largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries who released Russians in their custody as part of the exchange.

Here are some things to know:

Who was freed

The 24 people — some prominent, some not — included a collection of journalists and political dissidents, suspected spies, a computer hacker and a fraudster. Even a man convicted of murder.

Russia released 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Both were facing long prison sentences after being convicted in Russia’s heavily politicized legal system of espionage charges that the U.S. government called baseless.

Also freed by Moscow was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military — accusations her family and employer have rejected.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva all arrived late Thursday at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where they were greeted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Russia also released Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated.

The most infamous of the eight people Russia got back is Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. It also received two alleged “sleeper” agents who were jailed in Slovenia, three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S. and two men returned from Norway and Poland.

A breakthrough in US-Russia relations?

That’s unlikely.

The U.S. and Russia have reached several prior prisoner swaps during the course of Russia’s war with Ukraine, including a December 2022 trade in which Moscow freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout.

But none of those exchanges resulted in a meaningful warming of relations, particularly at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to halt his aggression against Ukraine and as Washington continues to send significant military support to Kyiv.

Prisoner exchanges have been a rare source of compromise and an alignment of mutually agreeable interests rather than a reflection of anything broader. Even so, the fact that the countries were able to get the deal done at a time of open hostility is notable.

The Americans left behind

Though Thursday’s deal involves the most well-known of the Americans held in Russia, including two who have been formally designated as wrongfully detained, there are still several others who remain.

That group includes Travis Leake, a musician convicted on drug charges and sentenced to prison; Gordon Black, an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder; Marc Fogel, a teacher also sentenced on drug charges; and Ksenia Khavana, who was arrested in Yekaterinburg in February on treason charges, accused of collecting money for Ukraine’s military.

Khavana had returned to Russia to visit family. The owner of the spa in California where Khavana had been working previously told The Associated Press that Khavana actually was collecting funds for humanitarian aid.

In a statement after the deal was announced, Fogel’s family said it was “inconceivable” that he had not been included and urged the Biden administration to prioritize his release.

A senior administration official, who briefed reporters before the swap on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the administration would be redoubling its efforts to get remaining Americans home.

The imbalance in participants

In prisoner exchanges over the past few years, the U.S. government has released criminals convicted of significant crimes, including drug and weapons traffickers and a Taliban drug lord.

The latest deal was no exception, with the U.S. and Western allies agreeing to hand back to Russia criminals regarded as properly charged and convicted.

The most notable example of that, by far, was Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in the Aug. 23, 2019, killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

At Krasikov’s sentencing to life in prison in 2021, German judges said he had acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport and the resources to carry out the killing.

Throughout the course of negotiations, Russia remained adamant about getting Krasikov back, making it clear that he topped the wish list. Putin hinted earlier this year that he was interested in such a trade to free a “patriot” held in Germany.

By contrast, the Americans and Europeans released by Russia include people who were either designated by the U.S. as wrongfully detained — like Gershkovich and Whelan — or generally regarded as held on baseless charges.

“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said but added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

It could have included Navalny

Central to the deal was a man who never got to be part of it: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

At the time of his death in February, officials were discussing a possible exchange involving him and Krasikov as a way to satisfy Russia’s relentless demand for Krasikov and unlock the imprisoned Americans.

Administration officials described the sudden and unexplained death of Navalny as a setback to that effort, but drew up a new plan to present to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In the end, several associates of Navalny were released.

The politics of it all

Biden had foreshadowed his commitment to a deal last week, when he said in an Oval Office address announcing his plan to abandon his reelection bid: “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

On Thursday, he basked in the success of a diplomatic feat executed in the final months of his administration as he welcomed the families of the returning Americans to the White House. In an apparent jab at the “America First” mantra of Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, Biden said: “Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world.”

Trump, who during his presidency had also taken an interest in hostages and wrongfully detained Americans, claimed during the June debate with Biden that he would get Gershkovich out as soon as he won the election.

On Thursday, he bashed the deal, suggesting incorrectly on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. had given Russia cash for the deal.

“Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs? Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps,” Trump wrote.

A President Harris Might Not Get Any Supreme Court Picks – Biden Proposes Term Limits To Make Sure All Future Presidents Get Two

Vice President Kamala Harris (The White House)

BY KEVIN J. MCMAHON

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

TRINITY COLLEGE

To emphasize the importance of an election, presidential candidates often predict that the next president will have an opportunity to fill one or two vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court.

But in the case of a hypothetical President Kamala Harris, this may not be true. Even if Harris were to win in November 2024, and then win reelection in 2028, she may not have a chance to reshape the court by filling the seat of a departing justice, especially a conservative one.

Jimmy Carter was the only one-term president who didn’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy. No president who won reelection has been denied this opportunity. In contrast, President Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices in a single term.

This inconsistency is one of the reasons why President Joe Biden’s call for Supreme Court reform, which Vice President Harris supports, should be considered a meaningful attempt to address a relatively new development that has diminished the ability of the people – through their elected representatives in the White House and the Senate – to shape an unelected Supreme Court.

Biden’s reform plan, outlined in an op-ed and a speech at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, includes two major legislative elements: 18-year term limits for justices and a “binding code of conduct” for the court’s members. The former proposal is particularly relevant for the future makeup of the court and the presidential election in November.

The Supreme Court’s place in American democracy

While every child in America learns in school of the Supreme Court’s independence, historically the justices have not been walled off from the larger world, issuing decisions while wearing political blinders.

Instead, they have been aligned with the enduring political regimes that dominated much of American history. Consider, for example, Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. Each party won six presidential elections in a row. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party won five straight presidential elections. From 1968-1992, Republicans won five of six presidential elections.

The court’s alignment with a dominant regime mattered greatly for American democracy. It was the primary reason political scientist Robert McCloskey concluded in his widely read book, “The American Supreme Court,” first published in 1960, that the justices rarely “lagged far behind nor forged far ahead of America.” Instead, McCloskey concluded, the court had typically stayed in line “with the mainstreams of American life and seldom overestimated its own power resources.”

A great deal has changed in the six-plus decades since McCloskey wrote those words. As I argue in my recently published book, “A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People,” those changes have undermined the court’s democratic legitimacy because the electoral link that once existed doesn’t anymore. Democratic candidates have won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. Yet, six of the nine current justices have been appointed by Republican presidents.

One of the key changes has been the length of time justices serve today. Consider that when Chief Justice John Marshall died in 1835, he set a record for service – at 34 years and five months – that would only be surpassed by one justice over the next 140 years. Indeed, from 1789 to 1971, justices served just over 16 years on average.

Today, however, presidents of both parties choose young nominees – generally around 50 – with the expectation that they will serve several decades. As I write in my book, “if the justices of today stay on their current course, Marshall’s mark will become commonplace. Assuming all stay on the Court until their eighty-fifth birthday – a few months older than the mean age of the last five justices to depart – they will have served thirty-three years on average.”

No change for another decade?

Consider that soon after he won his brutal confirmation fight in 1991 at the young age of 43, Clarence Thomas pledged to serve until he was 86. While those words were spoken long ago and may not be fulfilled, they highlight a central concern about the court’s place in American democracy today.

To help explain, let’s take Thomas at his word, and assume for a moment that he’s able and indeed does fulfill that promise he made long ago.

That would mean that at 76, Thomas – currently the oldest justice – would stay on the court for another decade. As noted above, this is not a wild assumption, as justices routinely stay on the court well into their 80s. Recall that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 when she died in 2020. John Paul Stevens was 90 when he retired in 2010.

Let’s further assume that none of the other eight younger justices die or retire before Thomas. That would mean there would not be another Supreme Court vacancy until 2034, when Thomas departs after 43 years – nearly seven years longer than the current record, held by William O. Douglas.

It would also mean that if Harris were elected to the presidency in November and reelected in 2028, she would not have an opportunity to alter the court.

The court and political change

Enabling change is a centerpiece of democracy. But in choosing the like-minded youthful nominees intended to serve for decades, presidents hope to insulate policy from the ballot box.

Presidents admit as much by often saying that one of the most significant decisions they make in the Oval Office is their selections for the Supreme Court.

Why? It’s because those presidents understand that the justices will continue to affect American law and politics long after their presidencies have come to an end and long after the elections they won have faded from our collective memories.

For much of American history, justices served approximately a decade and a half, on average. However, only one justice appointed in the last 50 years – David Souter – has served less than two decades.

So, while the rules of lifetime service have always been in place, the justices of today have altered the terms of the arrangement. It used to be rare for a justice to serve for three decades. Now, it’s expected.

Biden’s reform

Biden’s call for an 18-year term limit for the justices seeks to rectify this development, putting the court back in its historical routine.

With two vacancies every two years, voters will understand the potential impact of their presidential vote on the makeup of the court. They would know the forthcoming departures and should be informed of the types of high court appointees the presidential candidates have promised to choose.

Finally, voters will no longer have to morbidly sit back and wonder if an aging justice will live past the next election, as liberal voters did with Ginsburg in 2020. The result will be a court more in line with the democratic traditions of the nation.

Given the lame-duck status of the president and Republican control of the House, the term-limit proposal will not pass this year. Nevertheless, it offers voters something serious to consider as they make their decisions about the candidates.

And, as a scholar who studies the American presidency and the Supreme Court, I believe it offers an opportunity to provide the court with a greater sense of democratic legitimacy.

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Sure, 2024 Has Had Lots Of News – But Compared With 1940, 1968 Or 1973, It’s Nothing Exceptional

The New York Times on Oct. 11, 1973, announcing Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation. New York Times archive

BY PHILIP KLINKNER

JAMES A SHERMAN PROFESSOR OF

GOVERNMENT, HAMILTON COLLEGE

History usually happens at a leisurely pace, with major events months or even years apart. But this year, it seems like someone has pushed fast-forward, with significant events coming on a weekly or even daily basis. One company is now selling a T-shirt declaring “THIS IS MY LIVING IN UNPRECEDENTED TIMES SHIRT.”

The announcement on July 21, 2024, that Joe Biden would withdraw from the presidential race was the latest in a dizzying series of major domestic events in 2024. Here’s a brief list:April 15: Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial begins.

April and May: Pro-Palestinian protests rock campuses around the country, and thousands are arrested.
May 30: Trump is found guilty in New York of 34 felony counts related to hush money payments.

June 27: Biden’s poor debate performance sets off intense speculation about his place on the Democratic ticket.

July 1: A Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States greatly expands presidential immunity from prosecution and raises serious questions about the status of various prosecutions of Trump.

July 13: Trump is injured in an unsuccessful assassination attempt.

July 15: A federal judge throws out the case against Trump for mishandling classified documents.

July 15: Trump picks Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.

July 15: The Republican Convention formally nominates Trump for president, capping a remarkable political comeback.

July 21: Biden announces that he is withdrawing from the presidential race and endorses Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

July 21-22: Harris is quickly endorsed by leading Democrats and seems almost certain to become the first Black woman of South Asian descent to head a major party ticket.

While 2024’s fast pace of events is rare in American history, it’s not unique.

1968: Assassinations, political turmoil, war

Many observers have already compared 2024 to 1968. Both years saw incumbent Democratic presidents bow out of the election, as well as tragic outbreaks of political violence. But 1968 also saw a rapid unfolding of other historic events. Here’s what happened that year:Jan. 23, 1968: North Korea captures the Navy ship USS Pueblo.

Jan. 30: North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launch the Tet Offensive, undermining claims that the U.S. is winning the Vietnam War.

Feb. 8: Alabama Gov. George Wallace, a segregationist, announces his third-party presidential bid.

March 10: U.S. commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, requests 200,000 more troops.

March 12: Minnesota U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy nearly upsets President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary.

March 16: New York U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy announces his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

March 31: Johnson agrees to a partial halt in the bombing of North Vietnam in order to negotiate an end to the war. He also announces that he will not seek reelection.

April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Major riots break out in several American cities.

May 10: Vietnam War peace talks begin in Paris.

June 5: Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles after winning the California primary. He dies the next day.

Aug. 8: The Republican National Convention nominates Richard Nixon for president.

Aug. 20: Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces move into Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring liberalization movement.

Aug. 26-29: A bitterly divided Democratic convention nominates Vice President Hubert Humphrey for president. Outside the convention, Chicago police unleash a wave of violence against peaceful protesters.

Sept. 30: Humphrey announces support for halting bombing in Vietnam and negotiating peace.

Nov. 5: Nixon wins a narrow victory in the presidential election.

1940: War, US draft and FDR’s historic reelection

Two other years stand out for the rapid pace of significant events. The first is 1940, which was dominated by Nazi Germany’s invasions of European countries, the response to that aggression and a precedent-setting third term for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.April 9, 1940: Nazi Germany invades and conquers Denmark and Norway.

May 10: Nazi Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and is replaced by Winston Churchill.

May 15: The Netherlands surrenders to Germany.

May 28: Belgium surrenders to Germany.

June 4: Evacuation of 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France ends as Germany routs British and French armies.

June 10: Italy declares war on France and Great Britain.

June 22: France surrenders to Germany. Germany controls almost all of central and western Europe.

July 17: Roosevelt is nominated by the Democratic National Convention for an unprecedented third term.

June 24: The Republican convention nominates dark-horse candidate Wendell Willies.

Aug. 13: The Battle of Britain begins as Germany subjects Great Britain to intense aerial attacks.

Sept. 16: The U.S. institutes the first peacetime military draft in its history.

Nov. 5: Roosevelt is reelected for a third term.

1973: Abortion, peace deal, Watergate, political mayhem

Finally, 1973 also witnessed a rapid sequence of historic events. The federal right to abortion was guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Vietnam War ended after almost 60,000 Americans and millions of civilians were killed. War began in the Middle East. And Congressional hearings commenced in a political scandal that would, the next year, end Nixon’s presidency.Jan. 20, 1973: Nixon is inaugurated for a second term.

Jan. 22: The Supreme Court issues its Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing most abortions. Former President Johnson dies.

Jan. 27: The Vietnam War officially ends with signing of the Paris Peace Accords.

April 30: The Watergate scandal – involving a break-in at Democratic Party offices and a cover-up of it – explodes as Nixon announces that Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and White House aides Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman have resigned because of their roles in the scandal. Nixon also fires White House Counsel John Dean.

May 17: Televised hearings of the Senate Watergate committee begin.

May 18: Archibald Cox is appointed as special prosecutor to investigate Watergate.

June 25. Dean testifies publicly and implicates Nixon in the Watergate cover-up.

July 15: Nixon is hospitalized with pneumonia.

July 16: White House aide Alexander Butterfield testifies that Nixon recorded his Oval Office conversations and phone calls.

Oct. 6: Yom Kippur War begins as Egypt and Syria invade Israel.

Oct. 10: Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns, pleading no contest to federal corruption charges.

Oct. 20: Several Arab nations announce an oil embargo against the U.S. for its support of Israel, beginning the 1973-1974 energy crisis.

Oct. 20: The Saturday Night Massacre: Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resign after refusing Nixon’s order to fire Special Prosecutor Cox. Solicitor General Robert Bork becomes acting Attorney General and fires Cox.

Oct. 25: The Soviet Union threatens to intervene in the Yom Kippur War. In response, the U.S. raises its defense alert status from DEFCON 4 to DEFCON 3. The war ends with a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire.

Oct. 30: The House Judiciary Committee votes to begin investigating the possible impeachment of Nixon.

Dec. 6: After both houses of Congress vote to approve him, Gerald Ford becomes the first Vice President to assume that office via the 25th Amendment. That amendment, ratified in 1967, established the procedure for filling presidential and vice-presidential vacancies.

What do these years of unprecedented events have in common?

One factor seems to be that wars and presidential elections seem to generate a cascade of events. Second, important events seem to beget more events. In 1940, the Nazi invasions led to Churchill becoming British prime minister and probably boosted the likelihood of Roosevelt running for and winning a third term.

In 1968, the Tet offensive helped trigger the challenges to President Johnson, which led to his decision to drop out. That helped set the stage for the calamitous Democratic convention that year.

Trump’s political and legal comebacks this year made Democrats even more desperate for a winning nominee, increasing the pressure on Biden after his poor debate performance.

We don’t know if the pace of news events this year will begin to slow down. What we do know is that most Americans might appreciate a bit of a breather before encountering another potentially historic event.

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Biden Isn’t The First To Struggle To Pop The Presidential Bubble That Divides Him From The Public

B Y SHANNON BOW O'BRIEN

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INSTRUCTION

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

President Joe Biden’s at-times incoherent debate performance against Donald Trump in June has prompted growing pressure from donors, some Democratic politicians and voters for Biden to withdraw from the race.

But Biden, in an “ABC News” interview on July 5, 2024, questioned whether people are, in fact calling for him to step aside and brushed aside mounting concerns about his ability to defeat Trump in the election.

“I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” Biden told host George Stephanopoulos.

During Biden’s press conference following the NATO summit on July 11, he reiterated his commitment to stay in the race, and said – despite evidence of negative polls for him in key battleground states and among likely voters – that he had not seen an indication that he cannot win the election.

Biden’s denial of some political polls and a majority of Democratic voters’ concerns about his candidacy raise questions about whether he is unaware of the challenges he faces during the race or is disregarding what other people see and want.

Presidents have to rely upon advisers and staffers to help sift through the overwhelming amount of available information to provide relevant insights at the right times.

Sometimes, this close relationship results in a presidential bubble, meaning the insular relationship the president has with his staff, advisers and possibly family.

Biden is not the first president who has faced criticism of living in a bubble with an echo chamber of yes-people. Harry Truman once referred to the White House as the “great white jail.”

Living inside the bubble

The presidency of Ronald Reagan exemplifies how living in a presidential bubble comes with positive and negative effects. During Reagan’s first term, his closest advisers – James Baker, Michael Deaver and Edwin Meese – were referred to as “The Troika.” These three men often disagreed with one another but openly discussed policy and options with Reagan, forcing him to make decisions based on different perspectives.

In Reagan’s second term, these advisers left for various other jobs. Instead, Reagan began to rely upon his chief of staff, Don Regan, as his closest adviser. Regan was a very aggressive chief of staff who tightly controlled information given to the president. In the late 1980s, the Tower Commission – a presidential commission charged with investigating how the administration secretly sold arms to Iran without congressional approval – faulted Regan for what was known as the Iran-Contra Affair. The commission determined that Regan provided the president with poor advice, which led to the scandal.

During former President George H.W. Bush’s term in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he recognized that his chief of staff, John Sununu, also created a bubble around him. Sununu wanted to be Bush’s main source of information and made it impossible for people he did not approve of to meet with Bush.

Bush grew suspicious of Sununu’s activity and opened up a post office box in the early 1990s in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush directed Cabinet officials, aides and other people to send him information there if they suspected Sununu was not passing it along. Bush’s suspicions were eventually confirmed, and he fired Sununu in December 1991.

Former President Donald Trump also intentionally crafted a presidential bubble of aides and allies to give him only positive feedback. It became well known that Trump watched the news commentary show “Fox & Friends.” The show’s coverage began to cater toward him in positive ways, in an attempt to catch his eye – and to persuade him to take different courses of action, such as participating in the Republican primary debate in 2023.

There are other examples of how the presidential bubble has played out.

Former President Barack Obama, for example, tried to avoid getting stuck in the bubble when he refused to give up his personal BlackBerry, which he considered an important lifeline of direct contact with friends. He was eventually allowed to keep it, with some security restrictions in place.

Sorting truth from fiction

Presidential bubbles inevitably happen. Presidents live and work in Washington but cannot freely walk the streets as another face in a crowd. They have to rely upon others to get a sense of the public tone.

Presidents rely on the news media for information and for their staffers to analyze and break it down into coherent feedback. But these staffers’ job security often becomes tied with keeping their boss happy, which can mean they give information a positive spin. Presidents have to be astute enough to discern the truth from a veneer of it.

When former President Bill Clinton was first in office, he appointed Mack McLarty, his buddy since kindergarten, as chief of staff, because he knew he would be brutally honest if necessary.

Others, like Reagan, were misled toward disaster, while George H.W. Bush was savvy enough to mitigate the isolation. Some, like Trump, revel in the bubble because it provides a distorted but perceived happy reality.

Presidents are privileged to more information than the public on certain issues, which may give them more insight than is publicly available.

But when they dismiss the average citizen’s views, they do so at their own peril. Voters in the U.S. have a huge variety of opinions and points of view. Assuming the White House or D.C. insiders reflect the entirety of the country’s attitudes contributes to frustrations that a president is not listening to the people.

Biden has been in public service since 1972. I think that his contributions to the country, in the Senate and executive branch, cannot be quickly or easily diminished.

But I believe that the president does need to consider whether he is still serving the public. Is the advice that presidents get from their friends, family and staff tinged with their own ambitions and desire for continuation? Does Biden serve the public better by stepping aside for another candidate or by becoming the official Democratic presidential nominee?

These decisions are never simple, but in this case they need to be weighed against his own capabilities, his staff’s thoughts and also the views of the general public. I think that Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters need to be part of the process and not just presumed to fall in line without having a voice.

President Biden Denounces Trump As ‘Doubling Down’ On Support For Insurrection

President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media as he arrives at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BY AAMER MADHANI AND CHRIS MEGERIAN

MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Joe Biden said it’s “self-evident” that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss but stopped short of commenting on a Colorado legal case that would bar him from the state’s ballot.

The Democratic president made the comments about his likely Republican opponent in next year’s election shortly after landing in Milwaukee for an event focused on the economy.

“Whether the 14th Amendment applies or not, we’ll let the court make that decision,” Biden told reporters on the tarmac after stepping off Air Force One. “But he certainly supported an insurrection. There’s no question about it. None. Zero. And he seems to be doubling down on it.”

Biden also criticized Trump for his recent comments that migrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country.

“I don’t believe, as the former president said again yesterday, that immigrants are polluting our blood,” Biden said in a speech at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce. “The economy and our nation are stronger when we tap into the full range of talents in this nation.”

Biden’s trip to Wisconsin came the day after the Colorado Supreme Court issued a decision declaring that Trump is ineligible to serve as president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. It’s the first time in the country’s history that the provision has been used to keep a candidate off the ballot.

Republicans have denounced the court’s decision, and Trump’s lawyers said they plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump has refused to back down from his lies that voter fraud allowed Biden to win in 2020, and he’s pledged to pardon supporters who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Biden has repeatedly condemned Trump and described him as a threat to American democracy. However, he’s been more circumspect when addressing his predecessor’s legal challenges, including several criminal cases against him, and this one is no different.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment when asked by reporters aboard Air Force One.

“The president is not involved; we’re not involved in this,” she said. “This is a legal process and we’re not involved in this.”

Biden’s campaign was similarly circumspect in a call with reporters on Tuesday.

“What I will say is that the president looks forward to defeating Donald Trump or whoever else emerges from the Republican primary on the ballot box in November 2024,” said Brooke Goren, the campaign’s deputy communications director.

Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Colleen Long also contributed.

Few US Adults Would Be Satisfied With A Possible Biden-Trump Rematch In 2024, An AP-NORC Poll Shows

US President Donald Trump, right, and Democratic Presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden attend the second and final presidential debate Oct., 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn, (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

BY SEUNG MIN KIM AND LINLEY SANDERS

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s the presidential election no one is really jazzed about.

Relatively few Americans are excited about a potential rematch of the 2020 election between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, although more Republicans would be satisfied to have Trump as their nominee than Democrats would be with Biden as their standard-bearer, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

That palpable apathy from voters comes even as both Biden and Trump are facing relatively few obstacles in their paths to lock down their respective parties’ nominations next year. Biden has amassed broad support from Democratic officials as a handful of mostly token primary challengers have struggled to spark momentum. And despite 91 indictments across four criminal cases — including some centered on his attempts to overturn his electoral loss to Biden in 2020 — Trump’s grip on GOP primary voters shows no signs of loosening a month before the first nominating contest in Iowa.

“Probably the best way to put it is, I find it sad for our country that that’s our best choices,” said Randy Johnson, 64, from Monett, Missouri. Johnson, who is a Republican, said he wishes there were a third legitimate option for president but that the political system does not make that viable and added: “We’re down to the lesser of two evils.”

Andrew Collins, 35, an independent from Windham, Maine, said: “This is probably the most uniquely horrible choice I’ve had in my life.”

About half of Democrats say they would be very or somewhat satisfied if Biden becomes the party’s 2024 nominee. About one-third of Democrats would be dissatisfied, and about 1 in 5 would be “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.” When it comes to the Republican Party nomination, enthusiasm is higher for GOP front-runner Donald Trump. Two-thirds of Republicans would be satisfied with Trump as the Republican nominee for 2024. About one-quarter would be dissatisfied, and 9% would be neutral.

Looking at U.S. adults broadly — setting aside party affiliations — there’s still not much enthusiasm for a Biden-Trump rematch.

Most U.S. adults overall (56%) would be “very” or “somewhat” dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024, and a similar majority (58%) would be very or somewhat dissatisfied with Trump as the GOP’s pick. Nearly 3 in 10 U.S. adults, or 28%, say they would be dissatisfied with both Trump and Biden becoming their party’s respective nominees – with independents (43%) being more likely than Democrats (28%) or Republicans (20%) to express their displeasure with both men gaining party nominations.

Deborah Brophy is an independent who says she supported Biden in the 2020 presidential election. But now, the 67-year-old has soured on the president, saying she felt Biden is too focused on dealing with conflicts abroad rather than “what’s going on under his own nose,” such as homelessness, gun violence and the economy.

“What’s going on with Biden right now?” said Brophy, of North Reading, Massachusetts. “I don’t think he’s, health-wise, able to continue another four years in office. I think his mind is a little bit going the wrong way in the way of not being able to think.”

Yet she is turned off by Trump’s attitude and said he “seems a little racist,” even while praising his business acumen.

“So I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Brophy added.

Among Democrats and Republicans alike, having a candidate who can win is given slightly more importance than having a candidate whose views represent most people in the party or even themselves, according to the AP-NORC poll.

Only about 3 in 10 Democrats are “extremely” or “very” confident that the Democratic Party’s process will result in nominating a candidate who can win the general election in November. About half are somewhat confident, and 18% are not very confident or not at all confident. While relatively few are highly confident they’ll get a winning nominee out of the process, three-quarters of Democrats say it’s “extremely” or “very” important that the party’s process for nominating a presidential candidate does result in a candidate who can win the general election.

Meanwhile, one-third of Republicans are extremely or very confident that the Republican Party’s process for nominating a presidential candidate will result in someone who can win the general election. Slightly fewer than half, or 46%, are somewhat confident, and 2 in 10 are not very or not at all confident. Seven in 10 Republicans say it’s extremely or very important that their process results in a nominee who can win in 2024.

“I’ve voted for Trump twice. I’ll vote for him again if I had to. I certainly would not vote for Biden,” said Joe Hill, 70, a Republican from West Point, Georgia. “But I would welcome someone new and quite frankly, I’m not confident he can win against Biden.”

Hill said he was concerned that Trump could be too polarizing with a wide swath of voters.

“I want a Republican to be elected, so I’m in favor of any Republican that would be on the ballot,” Hill said. “I would more so, if it wasn’t him.”

The poll shows neither man is viewed favorably by a majority of the U.S. public, with only 42% saying they have a favorable view of Biden and 36% saying the same of Trump.

Both are generally viewed favorably within their own party: About three-quarters of Democrats have a favorable view of Biden and about 7 in 10 Republicans have a favorable view of Trump. But Republicans are more likely to say their view of Trump is strongly favorable than Democrats are to say the same of Biden, 46% vs 34%. Democrats are more likely than Republicans are to say they have only a somewhat favorable view of their party’s 2024 frontrunner, 44% vs 24%.

Josh Reed, of Pittsburg, California, said he prefers alternatives to Trump in the Republican field such as South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who withdrew from the race last month.

But if the choice in front of voters next fall is Biden and Trump, “it’s between those two,” said Reed, 39, a registered Republican, though he says he holds more libertarian views. “There’s no third party that’s going to make a dent in anything. Sometimes it is what it is. You got to pick between those two.”

He will definitely vote next year, Reed said. But, he added: “I’m not really excited for either one of these guys.”

The poll of 1,074 adults was conducted Nov. 30 – Dec. 4, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

BIDEN FACES NIGERIA CRISIS

President Joe Biden. Image: The White House

BY DANIEL VOLMAN

President Biden faces three simultaneous crises in his policy toward Nigeria in the aftermath of the elections on February 25, when 24 million Nigerians voted in national elections. Now, following the election of Bola Tinubu as president, they are all coming to a head.

First, Washington’s efforts to get the previous government of Muhammadu Buhari to end or reduce official corruption in Nigeria, to end or reduce state violence against civilians (especially women and children) and non-violent demonstrators, to contain or defeat jihadi insurgencies, and to reform the economy completely failed.

Second, the government’s conduct of the February election, the violence that occurred during the polling, and the associated currency crisis, only made the situation worse.

Third, members of Congress are stepping up their efforts to block future U.S. arms deliveries to Nigeria.

The February elections came during a continuing struggle to contain the insurgencies of Boko Harum (which has affiliated with al-Qaeda) and the Islamic State in West Africa (which is a branch of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq). All three serious contenders represented different elements of Nigeria’s notoriously corrupt political elite, and less than a third of the registered voter thought there was any actual point in going to the polls.

The victor, Bola Tinubu, was handpicked by Buhari, the army general who led a military coup in 1983 and headed a military dictatorship that lasted two years before Buhari as overthrown in another coup (elected president in 2015, he was completing his second and last term). Although the vote count reported was probably the most honest and valid of any of the country’s elections, they were challenged in the courts. The courts upheld the results and Tinubu was inaugurated on May 29, 2023.

Over the past six years, United States has sold more than $1.6 billion worth of weaponry and other military equipment to Nigeria ($593 million for 12 A-29 Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft and $1 billion for 12 AH-1Z Cobra helicopter gunships). In 2015, the Obama administration agreed to sell 12 A-29 Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft to Nigeria. Congress was officially notified of the deal by the Trump administration in 2017 and the warplanes were delivered by the Biden administration in 2021.

“I would also like to thank you again through—thank the Government of the U.S. for the cooperation on security, which has been very important to us,’ Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo told U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja during Blinken’s 2021 visit to Nigeria. “The Super Tucanos have been delivered, and of course,” he added, “we’re looking forward to the [attack] helicopters as well.”

As Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffry Onyeama put it, the Biden administration has been “supportive in the security area, provided a Super Tucano aircraft.” And while “we have a slight issue with some attack helicopters,” he declared, “that’s more on the legislative side and not on the executive side.”

In his response, Secretary Blinken made no mention of U.S. arms sales to Nigeria. However, Blinken did assert that the United States did “very much appreciate as well the security cooperation that we’re developing and making sure that we do it in a comprehensive way that puts our concerns about people first and foremost in what we’re doing.”

But events in Nigeria have provoked increasing resistance from U.S. legislators to the sale of combat aircraft to Nigeria and have put the helicopter gunship deal in jeopardy. In 2017, Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging that the sale of the A-29s be postponed until Nigeria demonstrated progress in investigating several incidents in which its security forces had killed hundreds of civilians.

“We believe proceeding without any clear indication of progress from the Nigerian government on the protection of human rights and enforcement of accountability would run contrary to our national security objectives,” they declared. However, Congress took no action during the 30-day period legally mandated for it to review the sale. A State Department official then confirmed that the arms deal “has completed the congressional notification process, and we are currently working to finalize the proposed sale with the Nigerian government.”

In July 2021, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee put a hold on the sale of helicopter gunships in response to the massacre of peaceful protesters at a demonstration against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Lagos in October 2020. In April 2022, the Biden administration announced that it would ignore congressional concerns and approve the sale on the dubious grounds that “the proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a strategic partner in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The sale of 12 AH-1Z helicopter gunships has proven even more contentious, particularly since the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.

In December 2022, Reuters published two reports on its investigation of major human rights violations by the Nigerian military. In the first, it reported that Nigerian security forces have murdered thousands of children captured during military operations against jihadi insurgents. Babies, infants, and young children were executed because they were believed to be child soldiers or the children of insurgents. In the second, it reported that since at least 2013, the Nigerian military had conducted a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion program that ended at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls. Many of them had been kidnapped and raped by jihadi insurgents.

In reaction, Senator Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Secretary Blinken to request a review of U.S. security assistance to Nigeria. Risch also called for the State Department to examine the potential use of American sanctions against Nigeria for its violence against women and children.

In February 2023, two members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representatives Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ), sent a letter to President Biden calling on him to cancel the sale and review U.S. security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria. As they pointed out, “the assistance we have provided has done little to stem the conflict—in fact, insecurity has worsened from the abuses committed by Nigerian forces.”

Therefore, they concluded, “we believe continuing to move forward with the nearly $1 billion arms sale would be highly inappropriate and we urge the Administration to rescind it. Given the recent reporting of Nigeria’s previously unknown mass forced abortion program—which allegedly ended at least 10,000 pregnancies—and the targeting of potentially thousands of children, we also urge a review of security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria.”

The Biden administration’s dilemma is not balancing human rights and security considerations. U.S. security assistance and America’s complicity in the Nigerian government’s human rights violations fuel the insurgencies and boost public support for them. At the very least, the Biden administration should postpone the delivery of the helicopter gunships until it can provide Congress with credible and conclusive evidence that the Nigerian government has reduced official corruption and human rights violations by its security forces.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Biden White House Strategy For Impeachment Inquiry: Dismiss. Compartmentalize. Scold. Fundraise.

The Associated Press explains what an impeachment inquiry entails now that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wants to investigate President Joe Biden and his son Hunter as the election-year clash between Congress and the White House unfolds. (September 12)

BY COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — On Capitol Hill, House Republicans were all-in Wednesday on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Down Pennsylvania Avenue, the president was holding forth at the White House on the importance of bipartisanship in fighting cancer — and ignoring shouted questions about impeachment.

It was a clear sign of Biden’s broader reelection pitch: the idea that if he simply does his job and governs, Americans will see the results and reward him with four more years. Never mind all that pesky impeachment talk across town.

“Look, I’ve got a job to do,” the president said later, away from the cameras, to a roomful of supporters at a reelection fundraiser in Virginia in his most extensive comments yet about the inquiry. “I get up every day — not a joke — not focusing on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve got to deal with the issues that affect the American people every single solitary day.”

The we’re-all-better-than-this attitude is central to the White House strategy for countering impeachment proceedings being launched ahead of the 2024 election by Republicans who are trying to link Biden to the business dealings of his son, Hunter. This as the GOP tries to shift attention away from Donald Trump’s own legal troubles.

The White House has been preparing for a potential impeachment essentially since Republicans won control of the House in the November elections. It has roughly two dozen staff members in the counsel’s office detailed to the matter. The new chief counsel, Ed Siskel, is a former Obama administration attorney who helped craft the response to the congressional investigations into the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

The White House impeachment playbook so far has been: Dismiss. Compartmentalize. Scold.

That is, shrug off the charges as baseless, stay focused on policy, leave the impeachment question to the lawyers and chide those who give too much credence to it all.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had dismissed the inquiry as a “political stunt” and deflected questions about the details to the White House counsel’s office. House Republicans? “We think they should work with us on legitimate issues — things that actually matter to the American people,” she said.

Still, the impeachment inquiry is a tricky matter for Biden because the thing is so personal, focused on his relationship with his 53-year-old son, a source of pain and pride whose questionable choices have landed the president here.

The White House has said that Joe Biden was not involved in his son’s business affairs. And so far, despite months of investigations, Republicans have unearthed no significant evidence of wrongdoing by the elder Biden, who spoke often to his son and as vice president did stop by a business dinner with his son’s associates. Hunter Biden is not a public figure.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys were on message, too.

“Rather than waste time and taxpayer dollars on this political sideshow, Mr. McCarthy should lead the Congress to do real work of governing,” Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “Americans deserve better.”

Before now, most of the questions from reporters fielded by the president on the topic were about a criminal investigation into Hunter’s business dealings running parallel to the House investigations. His responses were brief and upbeat: He’s done nothing wrong; we support him.

While the overall White House strategy is not expected to change, this week’s announcement of a formal inquiry shifts the dynamics somewhat. It will be harder to just shrug off questions. And the Biden reelection campaign is starting to blast out fundraising emails and texts denouncing the probe.

Even the donation pitches reflect the broader strategy. An email from Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday made this plea to potential donors: “It’s clear: They’re going to throw everything they have at Joe, because they know they can’t run against our record. If you’re waiting for a moment to show your support for him, trust me when I say: This is it.”

Threats of impeachment used to be rare so there’s not much basis for comparison. While Trump was twice impeached, neither was about personal conduct. The inquiry into Biden is more akin to the late 1990s impeachment of President Bill Clinton led by the Republican House speaker at the time, Newt Gingrich of Georgia. In that endeavor, the White House stonewalled, making then-special counsel Lanny Davis the public face of its response. By his account, it worked.

“Take a look at how things went for Speaker Gingrich and the GOP House members after the midterm congressional elections in November 1998,” Davis emailed Wednesday. “They lost five seats to the Democrats, defying U.S. history.”

He predicted McCarthy would suffer the same fate, praising the White House response so far.

“The Biden White House has begun to speak forcefully to rebut the misinformation and false innuendo that is the only basis Speaker McCarthy and House leaders can express as the basis of a House inquiry.”

Andrew Johnson was the other president impeached. Trump is the only president to face it twice — acquitted both times — and he is the first to face criminal charges in four separate indictments, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden.

Rep. Ted Lieu, a top Democrat, said Wednesday there are no similarities between the Democratic impeachments of Trump and the Republicans’ pursuit of Biden.

“We had mountains of evidence,” he said. “That’s why articles of impeachment ... were passed, and that’s why we had a bipartisan vote of U.S. senators to convict Donald Trump.” Lieu added that while the Democratic majority didn’t ultimately have enough support to remove Trump from office, they were able to get a handful of members from the other side to join them.

McCarthy said that House investigations so far “paint a picture of a culture of corruption” around the Biden family as Republicans probe the business dealings of Hunter Biden from before the Democratic president took office.

“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said at the Capitol.

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says he doesn’t want the inquiry to last into election season. “I hope not. I hope we can get it through as quickly as possible. I’m an impatient person. We wouldn’t have to do impeachment inquiry if this administration would cooperate with us.”

As impeachment talk swirled elsewhere, Biden and first lady Jill Biden gathered with top administration officials on Wednesday afternoon to talk about battling cancer, one of the president’s top goals. Their elder son, Beau, died of brain cancer.

After the Bidens finished speaking, reporters erupted with questions about the impeachment inquiry. Four boom mics dangled above the table, ready to catch any response from the president.

He didn’t respond.

Associated Press writers Will Weissert, Chris Megerian, Stephen Groves, Farnoush Amiri and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Biden Is ‘old,’ Trump Is ‘corrupt': AP-NORC Poll Has Ominous Signs For Both In Possible 2024 Rematch

People watch from their vehicle as president Donald Trump, on left of video screen, and Democratic presodential candidate fore Vice President Joe Biden speak during a Presidential Debate watch party at Fort Masn Center in San Francisco, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020... (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

BY WILL WEISSERT, EMILY SWANSON AND DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is “old” and “confused,” and former President Donald Trump is “corrupt” and “dishonest.” Those are among the top terms Americans use when they’re asked to describe the Democrat in the White House and the Republican best positioned to face him in next year’s election.

Unflattering portraits of Biden and Trump emerge clearly in a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which asked an open-ended question about what comes to mind when people think of them.

For Biden, the largest share of U.S. adults — including both Democrats and Republicans — mentioned his age. At 80, Biden is just three years older than Trump, but many Americans expressed real concerns about his ability to continue as president.

Trump, meanwhile, has been indicted in four cases featuring 91 total criminal counts and elicits words such as “corrupt” and “crooked” (named by 15%), along with “bad” and other generally negative comments (11%). Not far behind are words like “liar” and “dishonest” (8%). Another 8% offered generally positive comments like “good,” though.

A deeper look doesn’t improve things much for Biden or Trump. And while many of the criticisms reflect a familiar partisan divide, the poll shows neither man is immune to criticism from within his own party.

“He looks like he needs to be someone’s kindly grandpa on the arm, not someone at the wheel of power,” Justin Campbell, a 27-year-old Democrat and security guard in the Brookhaven area of Mississippi, said of Biden. He was even more negative about Trump, though, saying that the former president “acts like a kindergartner when people tell him ‘no.’”

Campbell suggested that Trump reads so little about policy and national security that he might be “functionally illiterate.” He said he plans to vote for Biden next year and, “I eagerly await Donald Trump being in jail.”

Such sentiments were common. Fully 26% of respondents use words like “old” or “outdated” to describe Biden, and another 15% mention things like “slow” and “confused.”

Another 10% give generally negative comments about the president, and 6% use words like “corrupt” and “crooked.” Just 6% offer words like “president” and “leader,” and 5% use those like “strong” and “capable” — the top positive comments made about Biden.

Biden’s age was referenced frequently even among Democrats, 28% of whom mention it — a significantly higher percentage than those who point to the presidency or leadership (11%) or strength and capability (11%).

Trump’s negative comments center not on age but on his moral standing and conduct, along with things like “loudmouth” and “angry” (6%), “crazy” and “dangerous” (6%) and “narcissist” (6%). Some 5% use words like “strong” and “capable.”

Rami Marsha, a 58-year-old CEO of a manufacturing company in Agoura Hills, California, is a registered Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020 — but says he’d likely leave the presidential race portion of his ballot blank if those two square off again in 2024.

“I think he might be having some dementia, and I don’t think he has the power to run the country,” Marsha said of Biden. But he was equally blunt about Trump: “I’ve had enough of him.”

That’s a fairly common sentiment. The poll shows that only 24% of Americans overall want to see Biden run again, while 30% say the same about Trump — and majorities say they are reluctant to support them if they are nominated again.

Also, 62% of Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of Trump; 52% say the same about Biden.

Biden’s reelection campaign said the president’s age is not a top motivator for voters, especially compared to the administration’s policy accomplishments or key issues like abortion. It also noted that perceptions of the president and Democrats were not strong before last year’s midterms — only to have the party defy expectations.

A Trump campaign spokesman did not answer messages seeking comment, but the former president has previously used his indictments to go on the political offensive, telling supporters at rallies, “I’m being indicted for you.”

Larry Haith, a 73-year-old Idahoan and retired president and general manager of an auto parts firm, is a Republican who described Biden for the poll as an “idiot” and called Trump “arrogant.” He said he doesn’t plan on voting for either next year.

Haith blamed Biden’s economic policies for his cash net worth declining at least about $150,000 and said the president “just needs to retire and get on with it.”

Though he had some kind words for Trump, Haith was also critical of the former president.

“I really like what he did, and I like the decisions that he made,” said Haith, who added that, at first, ”I really liked that gruffness about him.” But those feelings have cooled, he said, in part because Trump has what Haith described as “a typical New York, arrogant attitude.”

“I’m not going to support him anymore,” he said. “I’m done with him.”

Annie Doerr, a 60-year-old retiree from suburban Atlanta who described herself as a moderate Republican, said of Trump, “I thought some of his policies were good for Americans, but he’s just too much of a distraction.”

Doerr had problems with the president, too, comparing him to what she had seen while caring for her 95-year-old father.

“He reminded me a lot of Biden, just things that come out of (Biden’s) mouth,” Doerr said.

“I just don’t think he’s fit to be president for four more years,” she added. ”He may have been when he first ran, but not now.”

The poll also illustrated familiar ideological divides. It found that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to use words like “slow” and “confused” to describe Biden, 25% to 7%, as well as words like “corrupt” and “crooked” (14% to 0%) and “weak” or “unqualified” (9% to 2%).

For Trump, meanwhile, the top comments among Republicans include the generally positive (15%) along with things like “strong” (11%) and mentions of America or patriotism (8%), along with mentions of the presidency or leadership (6%).

Even some Republicans use negative words to describe Trump, though, including labels such as “loudmouth” or “angry” (7%). Others mentioned arrogance or pompousness (6%), narcissism (5%) or other generally negative comments (6%).

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite corruption (25% to 4%) and dishonesty (12% to 4%) to describe Trump. Seven percent of Democrats mention racism, bigotry, homophobia or misogyny among their top words to describe the former president. Those words were hardly invoked by any Republicans in the poll.

Susan Grant, a 66-year-old retired office manager for a nonprofit physician membership association from Westfield, Indiana, said Trump “does not need to run again for any office. He’s not fit.”

But she added that, “While I respect Biden, I think he’s too old.”

“I do feel like he’s at the age where he probably needs to not run,” said Grant, a Republican. “I’m not saying he’s not able. But, overall, I would like to see younger people running for president.”

This story corrects the quotes that should have been attributed to Grant; the earlier quotes were mistakenly attributed to her.

The poll of 1,165 adults was conducted Aug. 10-14, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
WILL WEISSERT
Will is a national political reporter based in Washington.

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DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Darlene Superville covers The White House