Joe Biden Tells a Group of HR Professionals that World Leaders Want Him to “get more engaged.”
Going around the country and giving paid speeches is one of the main for-profit activities that Presidents engage in after they leave office. And former President Biden is already doing that. I don’t blame him for cashing in, especially considering Hunter’s large legal bills and his declining art sales. Hunter and his uncle’s influence peddling business is now kaput, and Biden, “the big guy”, is not getting his 10 percent anymore, so he has to do some work.
I don’t begrudge Biden for wanting to make a lot of money, and as long as it isn’t taxpayers’ money, and money coming from influence peddling I am fine with it. If some corporations and nonprofits want to blow 6 figures of good money to hear him give an hour speech, fine.
So, Joe Biden was in San Diego on Wednesday speaking to a group of HR professionals with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). I can imagine that people who work in human resources tend to be on the left, and they probably appreciate Biden’s effort to push Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies. Such policies help employ more “HR” professionals.
I don’t know what he was paid, but they flew him in to make a speech and answer some light questions. And light questions they were, such easy questions that it was almost like he is still in office. And some of the easier questions were at the level of difficulty that Jake Tapper would have asked him when he was President. And probably like when Biden was in the White House the questions were read in advance as well.
However, that is not to say that the event in San Diego offered nothing for us political junkies to dissect. I do think that old Joe said a couple things of interest to historians and pundits. He did have a few telling answers, which suggests that he is completely clueless, if not delusional.
For example, he claimed that since he left office people, “both Republicans and Democrats” have been calling him to discuss ideas and to get his advice. According to Biden, sometimes they even call just to “bounce ideas off me.” This we have to immediately discount as false. Joe Biden has been out of touch with the political situation in America for at least four years now. Bouncing ideas off him would be like bouncing a rubber ball off a mound of feathers. Completely useless.
I would remind you that he disagreed with the smartest people in his own Party, and thought that if he ran again, he’d win reelection. No pundit or reasonably intelligent person in our fair land believes that except for him. So, it is safe to say that nobody would take political advice from Biden or even bounce ideas off him.
Second thing he said of note, “I’m getting calls. I’m not going to go into it, but I get calls from a number of European leaders asking me to get engaged,”
Well, I do not doubt that many, if not most, European leaders preferred Biden as President. For one thing Biden, unlike Trump, was not an America first President. Biden was more of a globalist. However, while they may agree with Biden’s worldview, they certainly don’t want to see him “more engaged”. Joe Biden speaking publicly can only help Trump. And only a sadist would want to see Biden, or any person for that matter, making a fool of themselves in public.
But the oddest thing Biden said was his boast that his administration “strengthened NATO in a significant way.” Biden’s claim is odd for a couple reasons first; the claim is false. Biden did nothing to strengthen NATO. It was Trump in his first term that got the Europeans to increase their commitment to 2 percent, which they started to pay when Biden became President. And now in Trump’s second term the Europeans are upping their commitment to spend 5 percent on defense.
In an interview last Saturday in the New York Times NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte credited Trump for strengthening NATO saying:
“I think when somebody deserves praise, that praise should be given. And President Trump deserves all the praise, because without his leadership, without him being re-elected president of the United States, the 2 percent this year and the 5 percent in 2035 — we would never, ever, ever have been able to achieve agreement on this
But in Biden’s mind he strengthened NATO, but even more troubling is why would he even want to mention that as an accomplishment. It is really for Europe’s defense. Wouldn’t an American President want to take credit for something that helped America. Does helping to fund Europe’s defense help America? It is dubious at best.
And I also find it odd for an American President to take credit for strengthening NATO, which protects people in another country, while ignoring the fact that he opened our southern border. He let poor people and criminals into the country. Biden doesn’t even take responsibility for opening our border.
But I have noticed for years that Biden has an unhealthy obsession with NATO. In a book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds”, by Chris Whipple, which came out earlier this year there is a story which Biden confidant Ron Klain tells of Biden prepping for his disastrous debate. The debate took place around the time of a NATO meeting and Biden was so focused that he couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything else.
Klain is quoted in the book saying, “And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.”
The author, Chris Whipple writes that Klain “wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US.”
NATO is a cold war relic. It was created in 1949 to deter an invasion of the Soviet Union into western Europe. I guess you could say that it worked, the Soviet Union never invaded, indeed they collapsed in 1991 (the same year Zohran Mamdani was born), and instead of declaring victory, the powers that funded NATO decided to keep it going, even expanding it, with no known or plausible threat. Still to this day there is no real threat to western Europe, but I support the idea of a nation or a group of nations funding a military for self-defense. However, I’m not totally convinced that we need to help fund the defense of other countries.
Why does Biden believe that we should help fund NATO? Is it because he is a globalist? Is it because the left likes NATO? Does he really believe Putin, stuck in Ukraine, would try to invade a NATO country?
Well, I’m not sure but I think it may be his dementia. His mindset is back to the 1970’s when he first came to Washington. Perhaps, and I admit that I’m not a doctor, but as the mind goes it has been said that our long-term memory is the last to go.
When Biden first came to Washington the cold war was on, and the Soviet Union was on the march; we had lots of troops in Europe as part of our commitment to NATO. Our troops lined up opposite the Warsaw Pact’s troops.
At the time supporting NATO was bipartisan. But it is a new century, the cold war, the Soviet Union, our troops in Europe, are all gone. Perhaps Biden’s feeble mind still remembers the days when NATO was necessary. For example, when Biden would finish a speech, he often ended with the prayer, “God protect our troops.” He may have thought we still had occupation troops in western Europe when he was President.
Well, fortunately, Biden, like the Soviet Union, is gone, and Trump has gotten the European countries to pay more for their own defense – what a novel idea.
When Biden wrapped up his talk in San Diego, the moderator asked him what he’d like to be remembered for. He responded, “Being a good father.” Well, I guess one could argue that being able to give a blanket pardon to one of your sons, for any crime that they may have committed over a 14-year period is the actions of a good father. On the other hand, one could also argue that being a good father means that you would never need to pardon your son of any criminal wrongdoing.
David Shephard is the author of two books. Elections Have Consequences, A Cautionary Tale.
Norton’s Choice:An Inside Politics Exposé: Shephard, David: 9781892538802: Amazon.com: Books
