Haisten Willis of the Washington Examiner assesses the current state of Joe Biden’s presidency.
When President Joe Biden went viral last week for donning a red Trump 2024 hat during an event commemorating 9/11, it was a stark reminder that since he dramatically dropped out of the presidential race less than two months ago, he has been largely missing from the public eye.
Biden’s 2020 campaign was so low-profile he was accused by his detractors of hiding in his basement. His presidency has more or less followed suit, which is all the more jarring when compared to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. Biden has given few press conferences or interviews, and he has often left major announcements to his deputies.
But since dropping out of the campaign on July 21, announced via a low-key post on X, he has been all but invisible. The lame-duck president often holds zero or just one public event on any given day, and he only spent a few hours at last month’s Democratic National Convention, speaking on the first night, then leaving immediately for a two-week vacation.Biden has appeared on the campaign trail with Harris only a couple of times, and he instead has been pictured on the beach, in particular during the anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, which has become a talking point in the Trump campaign.
Last week, he paid tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, shaking hands with Trump at the memorial site in New York. He subsequently made headlines for his light-hearted exchange with a Trump supporter, culminating in him jokingly donning a Trump hat.
The image was all the more jarring, however, simply because he had barely been seen.
With Biden laying low, some wonder how the executive branch of the government (which employs more than 2 million people) is now operating. Conservatives often charge that unelected Cabinet secretaries or lower-level bureaucrats are emboldened in the absence of strong executive leadership.
