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.

14 points
*

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!

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2 points

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.

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19 points

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.

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18 points

Not sour grapes.

Pure fucking delusion and narcissism.

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

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17 points

Hey as long as we are talking about regrets Joe, how about regretting going for a second term when you said you wouldn’t?

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266 points

No, he wouldn’t have.

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75 points

But of course he would think that. 🙄🙄

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36 points
*

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.

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62 points
*

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.

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15 points
*

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.

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7 points

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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8 points

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.

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14 points
*

I mean he might have

No. “We finally beat Medicaid” Biden would have lost, bigly.

If anything though Biden should have dropped out sooner or not ran at all

Yes, 100% this. He should have been the transitional president he signaled he’d be, before being elected in 2020.

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8 points

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.

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18 points

His own internal polling had trump winning over 400 versus him

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19 points

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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15 points

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

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8 points

I agree, but it deserves more discussion than just “No.”

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6 points

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.

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-1 points

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.

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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.”

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6 points

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.

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2 points
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