Decision 2024: A ‘Well-Meaning’ Old Man vs. a Corrupt Old Man
Decision 2024: A ‘Well-Meaning’ Old Man vs. a Corrupt Old Man
Take a closer look at what the two special counsels wrote about Biden and Trump.
“A SYMPATHETIC WELL-MEANING, ELDERLY MAN with a poor memory.” That’s how Special Counsel Robert Hur describes President Joe Biden in his February 5 report on Biden’s treatment of classified documents. The report clears Biden, finding that his handling of documents didn’t merit prosecution. But Hur’s references to Biden’s memory issues have infuriated Democrats. They worry that any mention of Biden’s mental acuity will hurt him in the 2024 election.
They’re right to worry. But the election won’t be a choice between an old man and a young one. It will be a choice between two old men, each of whom has been investigated by a special counsel. These investigations have exposed two fundamental differences between the candidates. First, Biden is well-meaning, but Trump isn’t, and that’s why Trump, unlike Biden, committed crimes. And second, Biden’s cognitive flaws are small and benign, while Trump’s are enormous and dangerous.
Biden’s memory problems, as reported by Hur, are trivial. Here’s the passage that has everyone worked up:
He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.
This looks like an accusation of senility, as though Biden forgot his vice presidency. But in fact, the report shows that Biden, in collaboration with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, was deeply immersed in detailing and analyzing his vice presidency for a book. What Biden had momentary trouble with, in his interviews with the special counsel, was recalling dates. It’s embarrassing, like struggling to remember someone’s name. But it’s a failure of recall, not of understanding.
These are classic Biden gaffes. They’re similar to what he did in a press conference responding to Hur’s report: Biden clearly understood exactly what was going on in the Middle East and what he was doing about it, but he accidentally said “Mexico” instead of “Egypt.” Trump does the same thing: Three weeks ago, he repeatedly asserted that Nikki Haley was responsible for security at the Capitol on January 6th, when he obviously meant then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
It’s not great that we’re facing an election between two old men who sometimes confuse names or dates. But that’s not what should worry us. What should worry us is the rest of what the special counsels found.
Hur’s description of Biden as “well-meaning” has generally been ignored or interpreted as a condescending pat on the head. But in an election against Trump, it’s deadly serious. The special counsel investigations have found that while Biden acted with good intentions, Trump acted with bad intentions. And that’s why Trump, not Biden, got indicted.
Here’s how Biden dealt with his classified documents, according to Hur:
Mr. Biden self-reported to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage and consented to searches of his house to retrieve them and other classified materials. He also consented to searches of other locations, and later in the investigation, he participated in an interview with our office that lasted more than five hours. . . . Just as a person who destroys evidence and lies often proves his guilt, a person who produces evidence and cooperates will be seen by many to be innocent.
Hur contrasts this with Trump’s treatment of classified records:
Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would clearly establish not only Mr. Trump’s willfulness but also serious aggravating facts. Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.
The indictment of Trump, presented last year by Special Counsel Jack Smith, outlined Trump’s criminal behavior:
TRUMP endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and conceal his continued retention of classified documents by, among other things:
a. suggesting that his attorney falsely represent to the FBI and grand jury that TRUMP did not have documents called for by the grand jury subpoena;
b. directing defendant WALTINE NAUTA to move boxes of documents to conceal them from TRUMP’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury;
c. suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents called for by the grand jury subpoena.
And, in a cloak-and-dagger operation detailed in the indictment:
f. attempting to delete security camera footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club to conceal information from the FBI and grand jury.
The upshot of these two investigations isn’t that Biden is old. It’s that Trump is corrupt and Biden isn’t.
But there’s also a third special counsel investigation, conducted by Smith into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That investigation established another crucial difference: Trump, unlike Biden, is either pathologically dishonest or pathologically impervious to reality.
The third investigation led to an indictment, issued last August, that documented Trump’s persistent false statements about the 2020 election, in defiance of conversations in which he had been informed that his claims were wrong. The indictment cited direct warnings to Trump from “the Director of National Intelligence,” “senior leaders of the Justice Department,” “senior White House attorneys,” and “senior staffers on [Trump’s] 2020 re-election campaign.” According to the indictment, Trump “was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue—often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts—and he deliberately disregarded the truth.”
The indictment argues that Trump knew his claims were false. In that case, his intent was clearly corrupt, as it was in his obstruction of the classified documents investigation. But the alternative explanation offered by Trump’s attorneys—that he sincerely believed the election was stolen, even after the best-informed people told him it wasn’t—is hardly comforting. A president who tries to block the transfer of power because he can’t accept that he’s been voted out is just as dangerous as a president who tries to block the transfer of power despite knowing he lost.
What would happen if we were to replace Biden—a well-meaning old man burdened by minor memory problems—with an old man who’s corrupt and delusional? One answer showed up on Saturday, when Trump said he would invite Russia to attack NATO member states. Trump claimed that the president of a NATO country had once asked him whether America would “protect us” if that country were “attacked by Russia” but hadn’t met NATO’s quotas for military spending. Trump said his reply was: “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want.”
That’s how Trump thinks. Morally, he’s oblivious to the difference between victims and aggressors, between democracies and autocracies, between America’s allies and America’s enemies. And cognitively, he’s too stupid to understand international relations in any terms other than money. His only framework for thinking about NATO is whether member states are “ripping us off.”
These mental defects make Donald Trump a menace to our country and the world. The alternative, Joe Biden, is a well-meaning old man who sometimes botches names or dates but understands who the bad guys are and how to deal with them. The choice between these two men isn’t ideal. But it’s a no-brainer.