‘Potentially Disastrous’: Mark Leibovitch Pens Scathing Piece Declaring ‘Weak’ Biden ‘Much Too Old to Run’
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
The Atlantic writer Mark Leibovitch penned a scathing op-ed calling President Joe Biden a “weak” candidate in 2024 and “too old to run” for office.
On Friday, Leibovitch’s piece compared Biden to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg with a headline claiming “no matter the obstacles that Donald Trump creates for himself, Joe Biden’s candidacy remains an existentially risky, perhaps disastrous, proposition.”
The author claimed that despite Trump’s multiple criminal indictments and recent conviction in a Manhattan courtroom on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Biden remains a “comprehensively weak incumbent” this November.
“At 81, he is much too old to run for president. Durable supermajorities of voters still do not want any part of Biden at this age,” Leibovitch wrote. “His bullheaded insistence on doing something no one has ever done (Ronald Reagan, then the oldest president in American history, was 77 when he retired), along with the unwillingness or inability of Democrats to stop him, remains an existentially risky, potentially disastrous, proposition.”
“The stakes remain appallingly high. If Biden loses in November, that’s all anyone will remember him for,” he continued.
Leibovitch then cited data showing Biden tied or trailing the presumptive Republican nominee for the last few months. He added that Biden has shown he is incapable “of reversing his deficits in the most contested states.”
According to Real Clear Politics, Trump holds a small but consistent lead over Biden nationally and also leads the president in nearly every major swing state race. RCP polling averages show that although Trump’s lead is small, the former president has maintained a consistent lead over Biden for the last year.
The Atlantic staff writer pointed toward an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last month that showed Trump had a two-point lead but it expands to four-points when other third-party candidates are included.
“In its ongoing effort to console nervous Democrats, Bidenworld keeps trotting out its usual barrage of ‘Don’t worry,’ ‘Voters haven’t really tuned in yet,’ and ‘There’s still plenty of time left.’ It is now June,” Leibovitch wrote. “Is this reassurance or wishful thinking? Does Biden’s team have any coherent message about what he hopes to accomplish in a second term, apart from thwarting Trump and staying alive?”
Leibovitch took aim at Biden by comparing him to the late Justice Ginsburg adding that her legacy was “stained by her unwillingness to retire while Barack Obama was still president.”
Ginsburg’s death at 87 occurred in the final months of the Trump White House and allowed him to appoint her successor Amy Coney Barrett. Leibovitch told readers that “Biden’s conduct is far worse than Ginsburg’s, in fact, given the awesome power of the presidency and the havoc Trump could unleash with it this time.”
He concluded that Biden “continues to submit that the main rationale for his presidency is as a high-stakes game of keep-away. There’s no question he’s better than the alternative, but that doesn’t mean it’s enough.”
