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.
Harris’s ascent to the top of the ticket led to a surge of enthusiasm and improved poll numbers but ultimately ended in a decisive electoral college and popular vote defeat.
Kamala had a lot of enthusiasm behind her when she took over the campaign. Then she squandered all of it by hiring the same hacks who lost to Trump in 2016. If she hadn’t sidelined Walz, or ignored the Uncommitted movement, or ran on the kind of left-wing economic message that won in 2020, she might have had a chance.
Biden, however, had no chance. Even if he had reversed course on Gaza and adopted left-wing economic populism, he was doomed from the moment he walked on that debate stage. Everyone was worried that he was old and senile, and it turns out they were right. Nothing was going to make the American people vote for him after that became public.