I typically don’t read a lot of the political “tell-all” books that come out, finding that the vast majority of the content winds up being background filler and fluff with a couple of juicy bits tucked in to generate headlines and drive up sales. That may wind up being the case with Franklin Foer’s upcoming tome, The Last Politician, about Joe Biden’s presidency, but some of the initial teasers being dropped suggest it may be worth the time. One of the first showed up at Axios this week and it provides what is alleged to be an inside look at how Biden reacts to the treatment he receives from his handlers and some of the frustrations he’s allegedly expressed. Specifically, after a now infamous speech in March where Biden said that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” his aides had to once again rush out and “clarify” what he “really meant,” which was pretty much the opposite of what he said. Biden reportedly “fumed” about that and complained he was being treated “like a toddler.” (National Review)

“Biden instantly knew that the White House would have to clarify his mistake. By the time Biden piled into the motorcade. His aides had released a statement walking back his sentence,” Franklin Foer writes in his forthcoming biography of Biden’s first term in the White House, The Last Politician, excerpted in Axios. 

“Biden left for home, ending his triumphalist tour, feeling sorry for himself,” Foer continues. “Rather than owning his failure, he fumed to his friends about how he was treated like a toddler. Was John Kennedy ever babied like that?”

Biden’s improvised comments about Putin put a damper on his entire feel-good European tour, in which he met with NATO and European Union allies against the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

We’ll look at that more closely in a moment, but it’s worth noting that this is the second drop from Foer. His first came last week when he revealed that Biden was equally furious over the press coverage he received following the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. He supposedly saw it as “the inevitable consequence of a difficult decision.” Foer also claims that Biden just wanted to get America out of there because he “detested the conventional wisdom of the foreign-policy elites” who were willing to “stay there forever.”

Foer seems to be bending over backwards to paint Joe Biden as a far more capable and competent, if frequently mistaken leader than many of us believe. In the case of the Putin comment, we’re being asked to believe that Biden “instantly knew” that his team would have to walk back his remarks as soon as he returned to his motorcade. First of all, if he “instantly knew,” then why did he make the remarks in the first place? And if that was how he truly felt, then why did he allow the remark to be immediately “clarified” in that fashion? Isn’t he the one in charge of policy? Can’t he share his own views without his people reversing his position? I’m not buying it.

Of course, this has been happening all through his presidency. How many times has Biden either suggested or flatly stated that we would go to war on Taiwan’s behalf if China invades? I’ve lost count. And each and every time someone was rushed out immediately after to “clarify” that our One China policy has not changed and what he really meant was blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.

But if we’re to take Mr. Foer at his word, does this mean that Joe Biden actually does plan to go to war with China if they invade Taiwan and he was angry about having those remarks walked back and “clarified” as well? If so, that seems like some awfully important information that the American public (not to mention the Chinese and the Taiwanese) would like to know. This only plays one of two ways. Either Biden became confused on both occasions and said the wrong thing leading to the walkback (as most of us assumed) or somebody is lying. Either Biden lied, his aides lied, or Foer made this story up. I honestly don’t know which would be the most likely.

One last observation here deals with the description of Biden’s interaction with his aides. National Review describes Biden as fuming that his aides “had infantilized him” by walking back his remarks. That’s an interesting choice of words, but that portion wasn’t in quotes so we don’t know if that comes directly from the book or if NR is editorializing a bit there. If someone is legitimately being “infantilized,” that means they are an adult being treated like a child. But if the adult can’t be trusted to follow a script and not completely botch public remarks on critical foreign policy points, perhaps that’s the only option available to them. Just saying…