The comment by the sitting U.S. president in Friday’s interview has been ignored by the mainstream, but its megalomania is at the heart of why Joe Biden is defying his party and remaining in the race, writes Joe Lauria.
Biden interview Friday night. (ABC/YouTube screenshot)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
About midway through what was billed as the most consequential interview of Joe Biden’s political career, he uttered the most consequential words in the interview: “I am running the world.”
Those five words explain why he refuses to withdraw from the race and confirm what most Americans deny, but which most of the world knows: U.S. presidents act as world emperors.
The interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos was supposed to be Biden’s chance to show the country he is mentally fit to remain in the presidency and run for a second term, at the end of which, if he is still alive, he’d be 86 years old.
Biden is trying to recover from a debate performance on June 27 that showed 43.7 million television viewers the debilitated state of his mind. On the whole, he was as addled in the debate as he has been for years now, but not live in front of such an immense audience before.
The reaction from the Democratic Party and its media was unprecedented: pundits and editorialists; Democratic members of Congress; party political operatives and analysts demanded in apparent, coordinated uniformity: Stop being selfish Joe and quit the race so Donald Trump doesn’t win.
But it’s had the opposite effect. Biden has resisted the chorus from the party elite: “I’m not going anywhere,” he told a rally on Friday, saying erroneously he’d beat Trump again in 2020. Earlier he met with Democratic state governors at the White House. He told them he was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he said, according to The New York Times.
And to show the public he’s still got his marbles he sat down with Stephanopoulos in a taped interview, the subject of which was only his brain.
“GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation that included neurological and cognit– cognitive tests and release the results to the American people?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. Not– and that’s not hi– sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world..
Madeleine Albright was right. And every single day, for example, today before I came out here, I’m on the phone with– with the prime minister of– well, anyway, I shouldn’t get into detail, but with Netanyahu. I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.
I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to– in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin. I mean, every day there’s no day I go through there not those decisions I have to make every single day.”
Biden thinks he’s running the world and he’s not gonna give it up. No matter that he’s losing his mind for all to see. No matter that he is fully supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza. No matter that he provoked and keeps expanding a conflict in Ukraine that is heading towards nuclear confrontation with Russia.
Biden is obsessed with power — with the power of “running the world.” And he won’t let go.
America is the first world empire. The U.S. president is the first world emperor. The debate to win the emperorship between Biden and Trump, the “stable genius” deranged in his own right, was an end-of-empire spectacle, as though it were Caligula debating Nero.
The rest of the world shudders in apprehension at what will come of this.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
“Shout Out,” to Joe Lauria w/the “Catch of The Day,” i.e., a miserably aged, “CATFI$H!” Straight outta the Main Stream Media’s, “river of comeuppance.”
…. Biden thinks he’s running the world; but, he’s shuffling through it, doing his “goodest, “he [UTTERED] the most consequential words in the interview, “I am running the world.”
AND, “Madeleine Albright?!?” Secretary of State-1997-2001. She “GONE!” Hey, Joey,”WHO” is Antony Blinken?”
“I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England.” “I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to–in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin.” Joseph Robinette Biden, “$itting” POTUS.
…. “What kind of diplomacy, is that, Joey?” “ASK [THE USA] do you want war w/Russia?!?”
“Because that’s what will happen if Ukraine, which has made a pledge to take back Crimea by force, joins NATO…you will fight a war against Russia.. Russia is one of the world’s leading atomic powers. There would be [NO] no victors; Macron does not desire such an outcome.” Vladimir Putin, 2.7.22
“AGAIN, Russia has said, FROM 2008, INCORPORATION of NATO into that ALLIANCE is a RED LINE. How many times do we need to repeat ourselves?” Vladimir Putin
“Many people,” believe Vladimir Putin pegged Biden-Harris as an unreconstructed warmongering & longtime advocates of NATO expansion; &, truly fears [their] ability to act on [their] madness, “Mutually Agreed Destruction NESS.
CONCLUDING, “there is but a [shuffle] between a proud man’s glory and his disgrace.” (Publilius Syrus)
It is obvious that Joe Biden has cognitive impairment. The US Constitution has way to remove a President who is unfit to carry out his duties. The 25th Amendment, allows the Vice President and the Cabinet to declare the President unable to discharge his duties. If the President contests this, a 2/3 vote by Congress is required. This is not a matter of politics. We must insist that the person in this position can actually do the job.
“I’m running the world”.
In a very hideous way.
(Those daily tests aren’t precise.)
Never a mention of citizens or voters. “He is ahead. You are falling behind”. What happened to the voters? They are never mentioned. The accurate sentence is “More voters prefer Mr Trump. Fewer voters prefer you.” Voters make the choice. Unless someone starts referring to voters, to citizens, to the people, I’m not prepared to hear the word “democracy” without telling you it doesn’t exist.