America’s European allies are, it seems, sharing some of the concerns that American Democrats and a good number of the American people have about the sitting president, namely, that he’s no longer functional. Oh, he can stand upright and make mouth noises, but Joe Biden is the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military (which remains so despite Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s best attempts to neuter it) and he is the man who has his finger on the big nuclear bang-button. So it’s easy to understand why folks in NATO may be a little concerned.
Diplomats and world leaders preparing for next week’s NATO summit are privately expressing acute concern about President Joe Biden’s age, health and ability to win the 2024 presidential election.
These foreign officials largely favor Biden’s reelection and fear that Donald Trump’s return to office would damage the NATO alliance and cripple the war effort in Ukraine. But they have reacted to Biden’s recent debate performance with dismay and fear that Biden may be too frail to defeat Trump and lead a global superpower.
One wonders if a big part of the reason that NATO prefers befuddled old Joe Biden is that President Trump needled them to live up to their NATO-required defense budgeting. It’s hard to see any other reason for preferring the dementia-riddled Joe Biden over Trump when the primary purpose of NATO is deterrence; deterrence only works, after all, if there is strength behind it, and there is no strength left in Biden or his administration.
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Quite a few European leaders are worried.
Few European leaders have addressed Biden’s age on the record. But Donald Tusk, Poland’s centrist prime minister, offered an extraordinary public expression of alarm after the debate, telling reporters: “They definitely have a problem. The reactions have been unambiguous.”
This, folks, is known as belaboring the obvious. Yes, Houston, we have a problem; our president, the supposed leader of the free world, the leader of the nation whose military will have to do the heavy lifting in any conflict involving NATO, is non compos mentis. That is a problem, and not all of NATO’s representatives were so bold as to speak openly about it – why?
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And just wait until you get a load of the schedule Joe Biden will be expected to keep.
Biden will have to very publicly show off his leadership skills and stamina at the summit in Washington, which begins Tuesday morning and runs through Thursday in what’s forecast to be sweltering heat. As the host, he won’t be able to skip events.
On the summit’s first day, the president will deliver a high-profile speech on NATO’s 75 years at the Mellon Auditorium, where the alliance’s founding charter was signed a few years after World War II. Biden is an advocate for strengthening the alliance, but the message could get lost if he stumbles over key passages or loses his train of thought mid-sentence.
Oh, for the love of Pete. Are Biden’s people really going to let him do this? Did none of them watch the first presidential debate or old Joe’s disastrous interview with George Stephanopoulos, the Clinton creature that nevertheless actually pressed the president on a few points? But as far as the NATO summit schedule goes, it only gets worse from there:
Then on Wednesday — the summit’s busiest 24 hours — Biden will shake hands with leaders of the other 31 member states as well as partner nations. Then he’ll lead a three-hour meeting of the North Atlantic Council featuring the other heads of state and government.
On Wednesday night, Biden will host a dinner of world leaders deep into the night — blowing past his newly self-imposed 8 p.m. work curfew. It will have all the trappings of a state dinner, requiring Biden to be lucid as he pals around with counterparts and discusses sensitive matters away from the cameras.
Biden on Thursday will also attend and lead a marathon session of meetings on topics ranging from the war in Ukraine, to boosting NATO’s deterrence capabilities, to the dynamic security situation in the Indo-Pacific. He’ll have to sit for bilateral sessions with top allies, adding even more to his already packed three-day schedule.
And he’ll cap it all off with a solo news conference, where he is sure to field far more questions about his age and acuity than transatlantic relations.
That’s rather a long quote block, but it’s all important; look at that schedule, and picture the Joe Biden from the debate, from the Stephanopoulos interview, or any of his public appearances since, and ask yourself if he’ll be able to make this happen. This dinner will blow past his sundowning hour; there is just no way this won’t result in a major embarrassment for the United States. It’s bad enough when he’s just embarrassing us here at home, but now he’s going to be embarrassing us in front of all of our NATO allies. And some of those allies are making some rather pointed remarks, even if some are doing it anonymously.
“We’re having more conversations about our own defenses since it looks like Trump is coming back,” an official from a NATO country said after the debate.
Yes, because Trump will start insisting that you live up to your treaty obligations concerning your defense budgets. Uncle Sam isn’t your sugar daddy, Europe; figure it out.
“Is the U.S. leading or is it just taking part like everyone else?” asked a senior European diplomat in Washington. The grumbles mainly come from hawkish alliance members — typically in Europe’s east — who want military aid to flood Ukraine without limits on Kyiv’s use of it.
Why should the U.S. lead on this? Is this not Europe’s problem? Why should NATO be involved? If a NATO nation is attacked, we have treaty obligations, but no NATO country is involved here. We can argue about support for Ukraine all day, but why must the U.S. lead this effort?
Finally:
“It seems to me that’s going to be very tough for him to pursue his campaign and to stay on,” said one senior EU diplomat, who added that while it was up to the Democratic Party whether to replace him, they should be “considering all options.”
No s**t, Sherlock. Trust me, we’re concerned too; we’re concerned by the fact that the President of the United States is arguably the most powerful man on the planet, and the current occupant of that chair is utterly incapable of the job. In a fair world, in a world where President Biden’s family actually cared about him and in which Washington pols cared more about what was good for the country and not what was good for the Biden family’s myriad bank accounts or the Democratic Party’s grasp on power, a delegation would have gone to Joe Biden by now to insist he not only step away from his reelection campaign but resign the presidency, for the good of the country.
It’s not as though his understudy is much more capable, but even so, it’s past time the Democrats did the right thing for the right reasons for once – for the good of the country, old Joe’s gotta go.
NATO is worried by the prospect of Trump 2, The Wrath of Trump. But they’re worried that Donald Trump, with his focus on domestic matters, will insist NATO start taking care of some of Europe’s problems on their own. Americans are worried that Joe Biden will stumble and fumble us into a major war. He’s already wrecked our economy and spent us unto penury. NATO is just going to have to get used to the idea that, when Americans vote in November, matters in Europe aren’t going to be very high on our list of concerns.
