by Sharon Rondeau
(Jun. 5, 2024) — On Wednesday’s “The Dan Bongino Show,” which airs on Rumble weekdays at 11:00 a.m. ET, host and former U.S. Secret Service agent Dan Bongino reviewed a Wall Street Journal article published Tuesday describing a January West Wing meeting wherein aides to Joe Biden described him as less than alert.
“Biden’s Brain is GONE,” Bongino titled the episode.
“Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,” the WSJ‘s headline reads, with a lead-in of, “Participants in meetings said the 81-year-old president performed poorly at times. The White House said Biden is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics.”
A subscription is required to read the entire story at The Journal, though it has been published in its entirety at MSN.
Newsweek published a similar account initially, Bongino said, while calling The Journal‘s “headline” both “explosive” and “anti-climactic.”
The article begins:
When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.
As Bongino read the opening paragraph, he asked his audience, “Folks, do you think these five people…are Republicans?…Why are those people likely Democrats?…Because if they were five Republicans, they’d be on the record, right?”
“Democrats want this guy out,” Bongino went on to claim. “‘…Hello; my name is Joe Biden…'” he speculated Biden could have uttered during the meeting.
“You can read the other 47,000 words (of the article),” Bongino continued. “…it’ll take you about 20 minutes…folks, this guy’s the commander-in-chief…he has the power to start a nuclear war while there’s chaos in the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, and five people in one meeting who are most likely his own staff are now sabotaging him in the mainstream media. They want this dude out; OUT…” he concluded.
“This article is based on interviews with more than 45 people over several months,” the article continues. “The interviews were with Republicans and Democrats who either participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, including administration officials and other Democrats who found no fault in the president’s handling of the meetings. Most of those who said Biden performed poorly were Republicans, but some Democrats said that he showed his age in several of the exchanges.”
“The White House kept close tabs on some of The Wall Street Journal’s interviews with Democratic lawmakers,” Linskey and Hughes reported. “After the offices of several Democrats shared with the White House either a recording of an interview or details about what was asked, some of those lawmakers spoke to the Journal a second time and once again emphasized Biden’s strengths…”
Speculating as to who might replace Biden at the top of the Democrat ticket if his prediction came to pass, Bongino asked his audience, “Who do you think?…They’re not going to get rid of Kamala; why? Because they’re going to be accused of being racist…you know they’re going to play the ‘DEI’ card…They’re in a bind…Biden boxed himself in…”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a possibility, Bongino said, “but he’s losing steam.” Laughing, he asked, referring to the then-live chatroom, “Who put Kanye up there?” referring to two-time presidential candidate and entertainer Kanye West.
“I don’t know,” Bongino said several times, while concluding “it would have to be Kamala Harris.”
“We’ll see,” he ended the segment.
After a discussion of Tuesday’s presser on the border wherein Biden announced executive action he previously claimed he did not have the authority to implement, Bongino returned to his opening topic. “Everyone’s starting to realize” Biden cannot “be the nominee,” he asserted approximately midway through the program.
“They understand they gotta get rid of this guy,” he opined, but Democrats are “still hoping he’ll voluntarily step aside.”
He suggested Democrat supporters will begin “pulling money” from the Biden campaign to force the issue.
In previous broadcasts Bongino has predicted Biden will not be the nominee, a view shared by left- and right-leaning political observers within the last year.
In keeping with Bongino’s claim, in the wake of a February report issued by Special Counsel Robert Hur regarding Biden’s possession of classified government documents which Hur said he would not recommend for prosecution, Politico reported:
So far, Democrats have vigorously avoided any discussion of a Plan B for their presidential nominee. But special counsel Robert Hur’s report may have forced their hand.
Fairly or not, Hur’s stinging characterization of President Joe Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties” has thrust the president’s age and mental fitness into the debate. Coupled with the widespread perception that Biden is too old for another term and the fact that he frequently trails former president Donald Trump in swing state polling matchups, it’s raised serious questions about whether Biden is positioned to lead the party in November — and whether Democrats need a contingency plan.
\In April, NPR aired a program reporting, “Some voters are convinced that President Biden won’t really be on the ballot in November. We explore this phenomenon.”
Bongino for VP?