How Do You Solve A Problem Like Joe Biden?

Ever since the G7 "cheap fake" vignettes, outlets across the board have been spitballing new strategies to replace Joe on the November ballot. Via the UK Daily Mail,

[I]t seems no matter how much cold water the Biden campaign or Democratic Party throw on this raging fire of speculation, Americans will not be put off the Great Joe Biden Replacement Theory.

It's the idea that somehow, some way the President will be swapped out as the Democratic Party's candidate ahead of the 2024 election.

But the obstacle is always Kamala, who is the other horn of the dilemma. The Daily Mail points this out:

[The substitute] would not be Vice President Kamala Harris, according to sources, who observed that Harris has already had to fend off a push to replace her on the ticket.

'It doesn't just become Kamala. Kamala only becomes the nominee if Biden dies,' one blunt consultant said.

Another Democratic political insider believes that Harris has failed so badly as vice president that she has made it nearly impossible for Biden to step aside – because the party would have to contend with progressive blowback over passing over the potential first black woman president.

The "only if Biden dies" scenario isn't completely accurate. If Biden is forced to resign as president before Inauguration Day 2025, or if the 25th Amendment is invoked, Kamala becomes president, for however short a time. My own feeling is that the likelihood of this is at least non-trivial, and it's the only realistic way Joe can be replaced on the ticket short of him dying.

How bad is Joe's condition, really? One indication is the White House's extreme unwillingness to release the tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur's interview of Joe last October:

House Republicans are demanding the [Justice] department turn over audio recordings of the interview special counsel Hur conducted with Biden in October 2023, about Biden's handling of classified documents after leaving the Obama administration.

. . . At a hearing Thursday, Chairman Jordan of the Judiciary Committee asserted the recordings are necessary because "the transcripts alone are not sufficient evidence of the state of the president's memory."

The implication is that the written transcripts have been redacted to minimize evidence of Biden's deteriorating mental state, which could well be much more evident in the tapes, and the White House's subsequent efforts to discredit videos of Joe freezing at the Juneteenth event and the Hollywood fundraiser, as well as him wandering away from the group at the G7, indicate the extreme sensitivity with which it views the issue.

It's worth noting that Senate Minority Leader McConnell had two similar public episodes of freezing last year:

For the second time this summer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze up while answering questions during a press conference. The Republican stared blankly for about 30 seconds Wednesday afternoon in Kentucky. There was a similar moment for the Senator on Capitol Hill last month.

McConnell announced his retirement as Republican leader this past February, sayiong at the time,

One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter, so I stand before you today, Mr. President and my colleagues, to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.

It was speculated that health concerns led to his decision:

Health issues for McConnell, 82, almost certainly played a role in his decision. Last March, he sustained a concussion and fractured a rib when he took a bad fall at a private dinner at a Washington hotel, sidelining him for six weeks.

Then in July, McConnell froze for 19 seconds at a news conference in the Capitol, worrying colleagues who said they had noticed a change in the longtime leader and they believed the fall had taken a toll. He appeared to freeze a second time at a Kentucky event the following month.

I continue to wonder how much the White House has been concealing the actual extent of Biden's decline, which has been hinted at in the foreign press more than here:

“Biden isn’t the man he used to be,” a June editorial story from The Independent, a U.K. newspaper, reads. “A failure to take the mounting evidence seriously risks not only a collapse of trust in the White House that will affect future presidents but the specter of real crises during a second Biden term.”

. . . International media outlets especially covered concerns surrounding Biden after Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report in February regarding Biden’s possible mishandling of classified documents. The report recommended not pursuing charges against Biden because he presented himself as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and a jury would likely find him not guilty.

Biden held a press conference the same day the report was released and criticized Hur’s report, but made a series of slip-ups during remarks and shouted at reporters, which some media outlets claimed highlighted Hur’s findings.

. . . “The numerous references in the report to Joe Biden’s failing memory. . . give unprecedented force to questions about his physical and mental capacity to stand again,” a news story from French outlet Le Monde wrote about the Hur report. “The worrying episodes are increasing.”

To some extent, the references to Joe's ability to run for re-election are polite. The November election is still over four months away, but Joe's campaign is clearly faltering long before traditional presidential campaigns even start. On one hand, the possibility of some new crisis demanding the president's full attention can't be ruled out, while on the other, Joe can't stand an infinite number of new episodes that call his condition into question.

It's likely that Sen McConnell's resignation as Republican leader was prompted by behind-the-scenes pressure, as well as Trump's statement, only a week before the senator's announcement, that he "wasn't sure" if he could work with McConnell. Right now, we don't know what sort of pressure may be happening for Joe behind the scenes already. Nevertheless, as of 2024, Trump is displaying far greater political strength out of office, for instance in his ability to force McConnell's retirement, than he had during his actual term.

For Kamala to succeed to the presidency between now and Inauguration Day presents a problem for national leadership in both parties, and even its potential represents a constitutional crisis. I suspect a few people close to Trump are gaming this out, and I think the likelihood of something like this happening is greater than anyone expects. I think the current situation is neither stable nor sustainable for long.