Joe Biden has a problem with lying and trying to puff himself up.
I’m not sure why he is so insecure that he thinks he always has to keep making things up to make himself sound more important. But it’s a problem that he’s had all his life. He pushed out some vivid fantasies on Wednesday including how he could have been an All-American,
But beyond the lying and the puffery, there’s also just the general weirdness. As though he never learned how to normally interact with people as a politician. He keeps saying weird things he thinks are funny, but they’re not.
Biden was speaking at a Tribal Nations summit when he spoke about his wife and started embellishing about how much time she had spent with the Navajos, then weirdly said she might not come home after a visit.
“I’m worried she’s not going to come home one of these days when she goes,” Biden said. “You think I’m joking, I’m telling you. If I hear more about the Navajos than I hear about me, um… Y’all think I’m kidding, don’t you?”
Um, Joe? Whatever you’re trying to say, it isn’t funny, it’s just strange. Every time he says “you think I’m kidding,” it’s never humorous.
At one point in the remarks, he also seemed to think he was getting heckled.
At least he wasn’t trying to shake the hand of an invisible person. I’m not sure what he thinks he heard. But he seemed so confused.
As Biden finished his remarks, he also may have let drop something important. He and his team have always said that he plans on running in 2024, although he hasn’t officially declared. But he seemed to raise a question about that with this answer.
When someone in the audience insanely shouted, “Four more years,” Biden responded, “I don’t know about that.” That seems worthy of further plumbing. Is he saying that now there’s more of a question about him running? Is he finally acknowledging he might bail, or be pushed out of the way by Democrats who want someone else?
Biden was then at the National Christmas Tree lighting and made another weird statement about a “beautiful lady” there.
But then Joe topped off the festival of weirdness: As Jill waved goodbye to the people and started to leave the stage, Joe just stood there confused.
She put her hand out to him to indicate they were going and she stopped smiling. It seemed like she just bailed on her handler job, she just kept walking away and he was slow to realize he was supposed to go. But when he finally did get it, he ended up taking the mic with him.
His team must have forgotten to tell him in those explicit instructions that they write up for him to “Drop the mic, don’t steal it.” He shouldn’t have to be told that, If anyone around him had any conscience, they would tell him to pack it in. But they don’t. So here we are.