What do you do when you need to run for re-election and don’t have much of a record to run on? If you’re Joe Biden, you demagogue — and it doesn’t take long in his three-minute announcement video for him to start. Even before Biden starts talking, his video uses January 6 imagery, and before he gets to any claims of accomplishment, Biden starts talking about the supposed “ultra-MAGA” agenda.

“This is not a time to be complacent,” says the president who doesn’t have much to say about his first two-years-plus. Instead, he talks about “battling for the soul of America,” and goes on to mutter platitude after platitude and cliché after cliché. There isn’t an original thought in the entire three minutes, and ends by using the same hoary message that every first-termer uses in a re-election campaign — “Let’s finish the job”:

Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours.

That’s why I’m running for reelection as President of the United States. Join us. Let’s finish the job. https://t.co/V9Mzpw8Sqy pic.twitter.com/Y4NXR6B8ly

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 25, 2023

Remarkably, Biden and his team managed to produce a three-minute pitch without any substance at all. Biden doesn’t mention a specific policy at all, choosing instead to attack his opposition while offering hazy bon mots about America, as though Biden hadn’t even started the job he now asks voters to allow him to finish.

Does Biden talk about the economy? Nope. If the economy was doing well under his leadership, do you think that Biden would forget to mention it even for a moment? Come on, man.

Does Biden talk about foreign policy? Nope.

Does Biden talk about immigration or border control? Bwa-hahahahaha.

Does Biden talk about budgets and deficit control? Nope. He does mention Social Security when he accuses the “ultra-MAGA” politicians of plotting to cut it, but Biden doesn’t mention that he’s pushing a cut to Medicare Advantage payments at the moment because of fiscal instability in entitlements. Nor does he mention that the fiscal instability is caused in large part by his trillions of off-budget spending in the last 25 months.

In a measure of just how substance-free this announcement is, Biden doesn’t even mention climate change, a point some of his supporters noted on Twitter. That was one of the central issues of Biden’s first campaign, and certainly one of the issues he intends to “finish” if he wins a second term.

Biden’s say-nothing re-election announcement is a perfect complement to his accomplish-nothing first term. The only reason Biden gives to vote for him are the “ultra-MAGAs,” and that’s pretty thin gruel. A lot of voters might remember that the “MAGA” years had low inflation, real wage growth, no new wars, and a focus on border security and crime prevention. And at the very least, it had a real agenda. This is exactly like Biden’s presidency — weak sauce, canned clichés, and failure after failure.

We’ll have more on this later as well, so be sure to stay tuned.