Ever notice how every now and then, you run across a news story that makes you go, “Well, duh.” In one such, on Wednesday, a report surfaced that, in a new book by author Chris Whipple, former Biden White House aide Ron Klain reportedly had some interesting observations about President Biden’s state of mind, or rather, the lack thereof, before his one debate with Donald Trump. Klain describes old Joe as “fatigued, befuddled and disengaged,” and if that isn’t belaboring the obvious, then nothing is.
Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain revealed that President Joe Biden was “fatigued, befuddled and disengaged” before his debate with President Donald Trump in June, according to a new book.
“At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin,” author Chris Whipple wrote, Klain “was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool,” according to an excerpt published by The Guardian.
Whipple’s new book titled, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” is set to be released this month. Klain, a close ally and major supporter of the former president, served as his chief of staff from 2021 until 2023 and helped Biden prepare for his June debate against Trump.
“The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” Whipple wrote, according to the excerpt. “Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”
That remark proved prescient indeed; the debate with then-candidate Donald Trump was not just a disaster, it was an utter shambles. On the evening of the debate, I wasn’t watching, as we had a friend visiting from the lower 48, and as the afternoon (here) wore on, he described a series of “increasingly despondent and desperate” text messages received from some of his liberal relatives.
And before and after the debate..