Deteriorating Biden Embodies America’s Decline

BUCK: You have President Joe Biden yesterday addressing the nation, and it really, honestly, seemed like you had someone who in many ways represented in visual form the decline of U.S. power and prestige on the world stage. Biden seemed tired, befuddled, weak, confused, not what you want from a commander-in-chief after a mass casualty attack like the one that occurred yesterday.

One hundred and seventy is the most recent number we have seen in terms of casualties. It was even more than anticipated: 170 deaths, 132 others still unidentifiable in terms of whether we’re talking about men, women, and children. It’s an absolute grisly, horrific scene there. And we lost 13 of our own, 13 United States military personnel in this mission. Here is Joe Biden after this happens, first of all, telling everybody that, sorry, after a war, people get left behind.

BIDEN: We’re gonna continue to try to get you out. It matters. Look, I know of no conflict, as a student of history — no conflict — where when a war was ended, one side was able to guarantee that everyone that wanted to be extracted from that country would get out. And think about it, folks. I think it’s important… I know the American people get this in their gut.

BUCK: So, we’re gonna leave people behind, it seems to me, Clay. It’s just a question of who. This is what Biden is saying after what happened yesterday.

CLAY: Buck, I hate that this is the situation here on so many different levels. But Joe Biden seems to me — and I know a lot of you out there as well — every time I see him speak, it’s as if he has aged and deteriorated further. I don’t know whether he’s going to be able to make it four years. Other than people who have died in office in their first eight months, Buck, since Joe Biden is a “student of history,” I am as well. I can’t think of a presidency that has been worse in its first eight months than Joe Biden’s.

Now, you had some guys, you know, get pneumonia when they were giving their inaugural address and end up dying, unhealthy, in their first eight months, certainly. But this is really… I think even for the most dyed-in-the-wool Democrat believer, you can’t watch Joe Biden speak right now and think to yourself, “This is a guy who’s got over three years left in the presidency.”

Look at the pictures of guys who were relatively young in the twenty-first century who have gone into office. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton bridging into the twenty-first century. Obviously, Trump only served one term. They age. The presidency is such a weight on your shoulders that for a 78-year-old Joe Biden, Buck… Are you with me that you look at him…?

And this is not even analyzing, necessarily, the politics. But just looking at him physically, I don’t see how he’s going to be able to stand up for over three more years in the most difficult job in all of the country, to say nothing of his decision-making or any of those things, just physically and mentally, I don’t think he’s got the wherewithal to be president over three more years.

BUCK: He was never impressive! This is the part of it that I think gets left behind. It’s not as though Joe Biden is the aging political genius or rock star or whatever it may be. He was just a “been around a long time, played the game the way he had to to keep his Senate seat in Delaware” guy, and now he’s been thrust but this role. He was, in some ways, perfect maybe to be a vice president because the Obama administration didn’t want anybody who was going to, you know, overshadow or create a real challenge.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: They weren’t gonna let Hillary Clinton be the vice president, and what happens now is we see that Joe Biden is in this role. He’s the president, and he’s supposed to be projecting not only calm and command to the American people, but — let’s be honest — an air of menace to our enemies! The enemies of the United States are supposed to think, “This is a guy we don’t want to cross,” and here’s where he made his pitch that we’re essentially gonna come after you, and we’re not gonna allow this to go without reprisal.

BIDEN: To those who carried out this attack as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay. I’ll defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command.

BUCK: Clay, two things on this. First of all, to our conversation about how this president is doing and appears in the role — and I agree with you. I’ve always said this. I don’t like… You know, I try to avoid… People call him “the dementia patient president.” That’s really serious stuff. But he’s the commander-in-chief! He’s gotta be in the role. So he is deteriorating in a way we could see, and for any normal situation, you just feel sorry for him. You want people to take care of this guy.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Instead, he’s been thrust upon us as the commander-in-chief. So I don’t think that it comes across in the way it’s supposed to as, “This is a guy who our enemies feel like is going to make that decision at — the 3 a.m. phone call — in a way that will make our enemies feel like they’re on notice and that there will be consequences.” But beyond that, Clay, going after, what?

We’re gonna track down ISISK or whatever element of jihadism did this? That does nothing for the next four days, right? First of all, we’re not gonna track ’em down in the next four days. We don’t have the assets to do it. We don’t have the attention or the time right now. We gotta get Americans out. Bringing this up, it just felt so hollow as soon as he said it.

CLAY: I watched this, Buck, and it felt like somebody was trying to play a role and they didn’t have the acting chops to pull it off — and I know a little bit about not having the acting chops to pull it off, because I’m the worst actor of all time. We do skits for our television show on FS1, and everybody else on the show makes fun of me because I can’t memorize lines. I can say exactly what I think unscripted, but as soon as you start having me memorize lines, I fall apart.

And it felt like Joe Biden was trying to play a role in the way that he was talking there. The problem is, I don’t think anyone out there actually fears Joe Biden in any way. And look. There’s an obsession. There’s an obsession because of Twitter with playing nice. Right? With being likable and all these things. And sometimes you just gotta be — and I gotta be careful what word I use here ’cause I don’t want to get us FCC violation.

But sometimes you gotta be… I’m just gonna use it as a a euphemism. Sometimes you have to just be a total jerk, right? You can’t always be Mr. Nice Guy, and when Joe Biden tries to pivot and show that he’s willing to throw a punch, it doesn’t register, right? It just doesn’t register. Just like some of you out there know you had a parent at some point who you knew was never gonna spank you when you were a kid growing up; so the thread of a spanking you’re like, “Yeah, you’re not gonna do that.” That’s what the government, other Governments around the world I think see with Joe Biden.

BUCK: Even the most loving family dog you want to have capable of growling and showing teeth.

CLAY: That’s right. That’s a good analogy too.

BUCK: I think that’s true for all of us. It’s certainly true for the commander-in-chief here. And, you know, I just keep… I use that title even more than president right now because that’s really the role that he’s thrust into, right? Yes, he’s both, but right now it’s that. This is a guy who’s making the top level decisions for the United States military. This is who all the generals go to. “Sir, what do we do? Sir, how do we go forward?”

CLAY: Yes!

BUCK: And I gotta tell you, the former commander-in-chief before him who every special operations guy I talk to — and I know a lot of them — every person I know who is a door kicker, a war fighter, they just felt like he was a guy who got it and would give them the orders that needed to be given to protect the American people. Here’s former president Trump on what he saw yesterday.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Our country is really in trouble, and it’s only gonna get worse. What you’re watching now is only going to get worse. It can only go one way. We had something where they didn’t get near us. They were petrified of us. I let them know that if they do anything, we hit ’em rightly where it hurts, which is their homes. And they know it, and they were waiting for us.

They would have been very happy to let us go and take every American and anybody else we wanted, take our equipment. And for some reason, he botched the plan and took the military out first! No, it’s a very sad day for our country and a great embarrassment. Beyond embarrassment, it’s a very dangerous day for on you country.

BUCK: Clay, we lost more American servicemen yesterday in one day than we’ve lost in Afghanistan in years.

CLAY: Ten years — 10 years, Buck, is the number that I saw out there. Ten years! This is the deadliest day we’ve had in Afghanistan in 10 years, and I think it’s all at the feet of Joe Biden. And, unfortunately, Buck, you and I, for the past two weeks had been saying this is where we were trending. I just feel awful for all those people out there on the ground in Afghanistan trying to protect our country’s interests and all of their families back here that they have a commander-in-chief like this.

‘Cause, Buck, you and I don’t want to have an impotent commander-in-chief. Even if you are the most dyed-in-the-wool Republican and there’s a Democrat president or the most dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and there’s a Republican president, you don’t want a weak American president. We need somebody who can uplift our interests, and Joe Biden is not that person.

BUCK: I honestly wanted Joe Biden to wind down this war and continue on with the Trump administration trajectory here in a way that we would have had no real criticism of how it was conducted. Because that would have meant Americans would have stayed alive.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That would have meant our people could come back home. That’s what we were actually rooting for. It’s not what we are getting, and we owe it to everybody in this country to be honest about that. This is a debacle. It’s not a partisan talking point. It is.