(Washington) The president has already disappeared, the man is only a shadow of himself: while the United States is in the middle of a budgetary crisis, as Donald Trump prepares to dismantle his balance sheet, Joe Biden , still in power for a month, has deserted the public scene.
Posted at 11:05 a.m.
Aurelia END
Agence France-Presse
On Thursday, Washington was in turmoil: following an outburst from the future Republican president, discussions in Congress aimed at avoiding a “shutdown”, a budgetary paralysis, collapsed.
The 82-year-old Democratic president is on the phone, according to a report from the White House. But not with parliamentarians to try to break the deadlock. With the Pope, whom he decided to go see in January.
It is its spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, who criticizes – in a press release – the latest budget proposal put forward by the Republicans, accused of serving “billionaires at the expense of hard-working Americans”.
PHOTO PETE MAROVICH, ARCHIVES THE NEW YORK TIMES
President Joe Biden and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, rages on his Truth Social network: “If there is a shutdown of government, which it starts now, under Biden, but not under “Trump” […] This is a problem that Biden must solve. »
For the “commander in chief”, the return to power of his sworn enemy is more than a political disavowal: a supreme personal humiliation.
Before reluctantly withdrawing last June from the race for the White House in favor of Vice-President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden was convinced he could be re-elected.
Rainforest
This already seemed audacious, but the Democrat's conviction of being able to carry out a second term seems unreasonable today, as he seems physically diminished.
During a recent trip, the Angolan president took Joe Biden by the arm to prevent him from running into a platform. The next day, the American president appeared to nosedive during a round table with several African leaders.
During a trip to Brazil, a short speech given against the backdrop of a tropical forest left a twilight impression, with the president turning his back on the cameras and slowly walking away before disappearing behind the foliage.
PHOTO MANUEL BALCE CENETA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Joe Biden spoke after a tour of the Museu da Amazonia, November 17, 2024, in Manaus, Brazil.
Joe Biden was already the most distant president with the press in recent decades, he has now cut ties.
No press conference during these two recent trips abroad, as was customary. Fewer and fewer impromptu exchanges for this president with increasingly slurred speech, who often struggles to finish his sentences.
The Democrat, whose mandate was weighed down by a surge in inflation, uses a column, published Monday by the site The Prospect, to defend his reindustrialization plans, considerable but obscure to the general public: “It will take years to see the full effect, in terms of jobs and new investments, but it was we who planted the seeds. »
Articles on its decline are multiplying.
My fault
The Wall Street Journalwhich the Democratic camp had come down in flames in June for an article exposing the growing fragility of Joe Biden, has just done it again with a story on the cocoon woven by the White House around the head of state, on his lightened agenda, on his difficulty concentrating.
Some commentators are mea culpa, such as Chris Cillizza, a former CNN journalist, who said on Thursday: “I should have insisted more, and earlier, on having more information on the physical and mental health” of the president.
Joe Biden doesn't even counterattack anymore. He has not publicly touted the final symbolic measures of his term, including partial forgiveness of student debt for thousands of Americans and the release of more ambitious climate goals.
At the end of 50 years of political life, the democrat is withdrawing more than ever into his family.
Renouncing his past commitments, he granted an extended pardon to his youngest son Hunter Biden, who is struggling with the law. This week, he paid his respects at the grave of his first wife and their baby daughter, killed in 1972 in a car accident.
PHOTO NATHAN HOWARD, REUTERS
President Joe Biden arrives at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Brandywine on the anniversary of the deaths of his first wife and the president's daughter, who died in a 1972 car crash, December 18, 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Even when he mourns his dead, the hostility of part of the United States manifests itself.
On November 11, Joe Biden participated in a small military ceremony in honor of his eldest son Beau, who died in 2015 of brain cancer. In the audience, a man wore the Trumpists' red “Make America Great Again” cap.
