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.

  • @AshMan85
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    2704 days ago

    No, he wouldn’t have.

    • @[email protected]
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      4 days ago

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

      • @dhork
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        4 days ago

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

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

          • @Wooki
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            3 days ago

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

        • @grue
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          4 days ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            43 days ago

            But Liz Cheney supported Kamala…

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

            Surely that’ll work…

        • @BussyCat
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          73 days ago

          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

      • @[email protected]
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        83 days ago

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

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

        • @Eatspancakes84
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          83 days ago

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

    • @garretble
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      194 days ago

      I agree.

      They would have kept showing that first debate performance over and over as a reason Joe is too old, and it would have worked.

    • @Aolley
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      154 days ago

      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

    • @Serinus
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      84 days ago

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

      • @[email protected]
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        64 days ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      -13 days ago

      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.