Monday, July 1, was a busy day. That morning the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that gives the president absolute immunity for committing crimes while engaging in official acts. On the same day, Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon began a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress at a low-security federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Before he began serving his sentence, he swore he would “be more powerful in prison than I am now.”
“On July 2, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, went onto Bannon’s webcast War Room to hearten Bannon’s right-wing followers after Bannon’s incarceration. Former representative Dave Brat (R-VA) was sitting in for Bannon and conducted the interview.
“[W]e are going to win,” Roberts told them. “We're in the process of taking this country back…. We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday. And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail.”
“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it's vital for a lot of reasons,” Roberts said, adding that the nation needs a strong leader because “the radical left…has taken over our institutions.” “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he said, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts took over the presidency of the Heritage Foundation in 2021, and he shifted it from a conservative think tank to an organization devoted to “institutionalizing Trumpism.” Central to that project for Roberts has been working to bring the policies of Hungary’s president Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, to the United States.
In 2023, Roberts brought the Heritage Foundation into a formal partnership with Hungary’s Danube Institute, a think tank overseen by a foundation that is directly funded by the Hungarian government; as journalist Casey Michel reported, it is, “for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.” The Danube Institute has given grants to far-right figures in the U.S., and, Michel noted in March, “we have no idea how much funding may be flowing directly from Orbán’s regime to the Heritage Foundation.” Roberts has called modern Hungary “not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.”
Orbán has been open about his determination to overthrow the concept of western democracy and replace it with what he has, on different occasions, called “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy.” He wants to replace the multiculturalism at the heart of democracy with Christian culture, stop the immigration that he believes undermines Hungarian culture, and reject “adaptable family models” in favor of “the Christian family model.” He is moving Hungary away from the stabilizing international systems supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
No matter what he calls it, Orbán’s model is not democracy at all. As soon as he retook office in 2010, he began to establish control over the media, cracking down on those critical of his far-right political party, Fidesz, and rewarding those who toed the party line. In 2012 his supporters rewrote the country’s constitution to strengthen his hand, and extreme gerrymandering gave his party more power while changes to election rules benefited his campaigns. Increasingly, he used the power of the state to concentrate wealth among his cronies, and he reworked the country’s judicial system and civil service system to stack it with his loyalists, who attacked immigrants, women, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals. While Hungary still holds elections, state control of the media and the apparatus of voting means that it is impossible for the people of Hungary to remove him from power.
Trump supporters have long admired Orbán’s nationalism and centering of Christianity, while the fact that Hungary continues to have elections enables them to pretend that the country remains a democracy.
The tight cooperation between Heritage and Orbán illuminates Project 2025, the blueprint for a new kind of government dictated by Trump or a Trump-like figure. In January 2024, Roberts told Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times that Project 2025 was designed to jump-start a right-wing takeover of the government. “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Roberts said. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”
Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace: the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”
In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned.
The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the right to abortion must be gratefully celebrated, the document says, but the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision accomplishing that end “is just the beginning.”
Dismantling the administrative state starts from the premise that “people are policy.” Frustrated because nonpartisan civil employees thwarted much of Trump’s agenda in his first term, the authors of Project 2025 call for firing much of the current government workforce—about 2 million people work for the U.S. government—and replacing it with loyalists who will carry out a right-wing president’s demands.
The plan asserts “the existential need” for an authoritarian leader to dismantle the current government that regulates business, provides a social safety net, and protects civil rights. Instead of the government Americans have built since 1933, the plan says the national government must “decentralize and privatize as much as possible” and leave “the great majority of domestic activities to state, local, and private governance.”
It attacks “America’s largest corporations, its public institutions, and its popular culture,” for their embrace of international organizations like the United Nations and the European Union and for their willingness to work with other countries. It calls for abandoning all of those partnerships and alliances.
Also on July 1, Orbán took over the rotating presidency of the European Union. He will be operating for six months in that position under a slogan taken from Trump and adapted to Europe: “Make Europe Great Again.” The day before taking that office, Orbán announced that his political party was forming a new alliance with far-right parties in Austria and the Czech Republic in order to launch a “new era of European politics.”
Tomorrow, Orbán will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin. On July 2, Orbán met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, where he urged Zelensky to accept a “ceasefire.” In the U.S., Trump’s team has suggested that, if reelected, Trump will call for an immediate ceasefire and will negotiate with Putin over how much of Ukraine Putin can keep while also rejecting Ukraine for NATO membership and scaling back U.S. commitment to NATO.
“I would expect a very quick end to the conflict,” Kevin Roberts said. Putin says he supports Trump’s plan.
Roberts’s “second American revolution,” which would destroy American democracy in an echo of a small-time dictator like Orbán and align our country with authoritarian leaders, seems a lot less patriotic than the first American Revolution.
For my part, I will stand with the words written 248 years ago today, saying that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Let's take a look at Cynthia McKinney:
It is conspiracy muck.
Weird things happen on the debate stage—just ask Joe Biden. So when Donald Trump used Palestinian as a slur against the president during last week’s debate, it was hard to know whether the insult was planned or just an ad-lib.
“As far as Israel and Hamas, Israel’s the one that wants to go—he said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas. Actually, Israel is the one. And you should let them go and let them finish the job,” Trump said. “He doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him, because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”
Whether premeditated or improvised, it was one of the low points of the debate for Trump, whose performance was obscured by Biden’s disaster but was full of misleading and appalling statements. And the next day, he did it again.
“Look at a guy like Senator [Chuck] Schumer,” Trump said the day after the debate, referring to the Senate majority leader. “I’ve always known him, known him a long time. I come from New York; I knew Schumer. He’s become a Palestinian. He’s a Palestinian now. Congratulations. He was very loyal to Israel and to Jewish people. He’s Jewish. But he’s become a Palestinian because they have a couple of more votes or something; nobody’s quite figured it out.”
This is an Everlasting Gobstopper of offense, with new layers emerging one after another. (Trump, like Willy Wonka, favors oversize ties.) First, there is the idea that calling someone Palestinian is inherently pejorative. Then there is the implication that Schumer is a traitor to his own people. Next is the suggestion that Schumer’s opposition to the current Israeli government is a result of his having been bought off—an implication of scheming, an anti-Semitic trope—even though Schumer’s criticism of the current government aligns with large portions of Israeli society and military leadership.
Trump has sought to develop a moderate position on the war in Gaza. He doesn’t like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a former ally, because of perceived personal slights. Trump has suggested at times that the war needs to end quickly, almost shading toward support for a cease-fire. But many in the Republican Party (including Trump’s donor base) are extremely hard-line and want to see Hamas flattened no matter the cost in blood. Trump has been more than happy to sit back and watch Democrats feud over the right course in the war.
But sometimes Trump reveals more than he intends. In using Palestinian this way, he’s not differentiating between Hamas and civilians, or between Hamas and Fatah, or between Gaza and the West Bank. All Palestinians are the same to him, and they are all contemptible.
The emergence of the insult is reminiscent of another notable Trump remark from the debate. The former president has sought to increase his support among Black voters, especially Black men, but he still doesn’t seem to know how to talk about Black people as anything besides an Other. During the debate, he warned that immigrants were “taking Black jobs now,” an argument premised on the idea that Black people do low-skill jobs and only low-skill jobs. This should come as little surprise—on The Apprentice, for example, Trump was resistant to Black contestants becoming executives.
These moments are useful for remembering who Trump is. His intense focus on the criminal cases against him and the retribution he hopes to deal out for them has become the center of his campaign, somewhat overshadowing the offensive rhetoric that anchored his 2016 effort. But sometimes the mask slips, and the old Trump is still behind it.
I get all the arguments against President Biden abandoning his re-election run. I really do. I have talked with Bidenworld insiders. I can recite the practical challenges of pushing an incumbent president out the door, and I know that people are determined to ignore the troubling new polls. I am familiar with the grim history of similar efforts. And I have long given these factors heavy consideration when evaluating the electoral mess confronting Democrats.
But now. …
While I still see the logic and anxiety behind the stay-the-course argument, the fundamental equation has changed. I’m betting most Biden die-hards realize this, even if they cannot admit it — even to themselves. So I figured it was worth ticking through some of the more common rationales I’m hearing, and why they ring increasingly hollow.
Let’s get the big one out of the way. Yes, Donald Trump’s debate performance was appalling. He lied. He dodged. He rambled and raved. He was at times incoherent. But it doesn’t matter, because Biden was not in a position to push back on even the most egregious malarkey. And that, my friends, is political malpractice. So let’s move past this weak-tea defense.
Yes, Trump is a terrible person and was a terrible president. I, like many of you, believe he is unfit to hold any office. But around half the country does not feel this way, and even many people who do not much like him are wondering if he is really a worse bet than a president who at any given moment might come across like your shellshocked papaw after a few snorts of schnapps. If people weren’t feeling it before this meltdown, they’re not going to be convinced now. So, again, let’s move along.
Yes, the debate may have been an especially bad night for Biden. No matter: His failure fit the prevailing story line that he is too old. And it started a steady dribble of accounts of similar senior moments. Biden loyalists can lecture voters not to overreact. But that won’t change what people saw. So … move along.
Yes, the debate prep may have been too vigorous or too lax. Or conducted at the wrong hours or after too much travel. And Biden’s makeup may have been subpar — which, let me just say, I warned everyone about beforehand. But people are going to have reservations about a president who seems so fragile, who can function only between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Move along.
Yes, Biden has done a good job as president and has surrounded himself with good people. But even voters who cheer his record may not be comfortable with giving him another four years. And it’s not particularly reassuring to say: “Oh, don’t worry about him! His aides will be running things.”
Yes, it would be complicated to replace Biden. His obvious heir, Kamala Harris, has a popularity problem, and pushing her aside and throwing open the doors to other contenders would invite factional feuding and disruption. But that does not mean replacing him is the worst or riskiest option. There are times when the path of least resistance is the one that leads to total disaster. This increasingly looks like one of those times.
Yes, Democrats are famous for being overreacting bed-wetters. And yet: Have you been listening to voters? Because they have been saying for quite a while now that they think Biden is too old. And continuing to lecture them that they are wrong is not a winning strategy, especially for a Democratic Party that frequently comes across as scoldy and condescending.
Which brings us to what may be the most damning attempted defense.
Yes, of course Democrats overwhelmingly picked Biden to be their nominee. He is the incumbent president, and that is generally how re-election campaigns work. But that makes this situation all the worse because many Americans feel misled about his physical and cognitive fitness. They suspect his team has been hiding important things from them. That is a truly destructive message to be sending a nation where trust in government and other institutions is already in the toilet.
So, yeah. I get all the concerns about easing Biden off the stage. I just can’t buy them anymore.
And the state of Georgia. Well that proves everything.
For all that certain members of the media continue their freakout over Biden’s electability after his appearance in last Thursday’s event on CNN, it is Trump and his Republicans who appear to be nervous about the upcoming election.
Journalist Jennifer Schulze of Heartland Signal noted today that as of 8:00 this morning, the New York Times had published 192 pieces on Biden’s debate performance: 142 news articles and 50 opinion pieces. Trump was covered in 92 stories, about half of which were about the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Although Trump has frequently slurred his words or trailed off while speaking and repeatedly fell asleep at his own criminal trial, none of the pieces mentioned Trump’s mental fitness.
But for all of what independent journalists are calling a “feeding frenzy,” egged on by right-wing media figures, it seems as if the true implications of Project 2025 are starting to gain traction and the Trump campaign recognizes that the policies that document advocates are hugely unpopular.
On July 2, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts assured Trump ally Steve Bannon’s followers that they are winning in what he called “the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” In March, Roberts told former Trump administration official and now right-wing media figure Sebastian Gorka about Project 2025: “There are parts of the plan that we will not share with the Left: the executive orders, the rules and regulations. Just like a good football team we don’t want to tip off our playbook to the Left.”
This morning, although Roberts has described Project 2025 as “institutionalizing Trumpism,” Trump’s social media feed tried to distance the former president from Project 2025. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the post read. Despite this disavowal of any knowledge of the project, it continued: “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
In what appeared to be a coordinated statement, the directors of Project 2025 wrote on social media less than two hours later that they “do not speak for any candidate.”
Aside from the fact that “[a]nything they do, I wish them luck,” sounds much like the signaling Trump did to the Proud Boys when he told them to “stand back and stand by,” Trump’s assertion and Project 2025’s response can’t possibly erase the many and deep ties of the Trump camp to Project 2025. Juliet Jeske of Decoding Fox News noted that Trump’s name shows up on more than 190 pages of the Project 2025 playbook.
Rebekah Mercer, who sits on the board of the Heritage Foundation, was one of Trump’s top donors in 2016; her family founded and operated Cambridge Analytica, the company that misused the data of millions of Facebook users to push pro-Trump and anti-Clinton material in 2016. Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has appeared in a Project 2025 video. Trump’s own super PAC has been running ads promoting Project 2025, calling it “Trump’s Project 2025,” and many of its policies—killing the Department of Education, erasing the separation of church and state, ending renewable energy programs and ramping up use of fossil fuels, deporting immigrants—are also Trump’s.
Project 2025’s director, Paul Dans, as well as both of its associate directors, Spencer Chretien and Troup Hemenway, were in charge of personnel in Trump’s White House, and the theme of Project 2025 is that “people are policy,” by which they mean that hand-picked loyalists must replace civil servants. Trump’s former body man John McEntee, who reentered the White House as a senior advisor after having to leave because he failed a background check, was in charge of hiring in the last months of the Trump White House; he helped to draft Project 2025. Key Trump ally Russell Vought wrote the section of Project 2025 that called for an authoritarian leader; he is also on the platform committee of the Republican National Convention.
If indeed Trump knows nothing about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it, his cognitive ability is rotten. As former chair of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele wrote, “Since [Project 2025] is designed to institutionalize Trumpism and you know nothing about it, then why do you echo some of its policy priorities during your rallies? Coincidence? And how exactly don’t you know that Project 2025 Director Paul Dans served as your chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, and Associate Director Spencer Chretien served as your special assistant and associate director of presidential personnel? And folks say we should be worried about Biden.”
Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025 indicates just how toxic that plan is with voters. As political scientist Ian Bremmer dryly noted, it seems that “the second [A]merican revolution apparently [is] not polling as well as the first in internal focus groups.” Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson was even more direct, saying that Trump was trying to distance himself from Project 2025 because “most of it polls about like Ebola,” the deadly virus that causes severe bleeding and organ failure, and has a mortality rate of 80 to 90%.
The extremism of the MAGA Republicans was on display in another way today as well after The New Republic published a June 30 video of North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, currently the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, saying to a church audience about their opponents—whom he identified in a scattershot speech as anything from communists to “wicked people” to those standing against “conservatives”—"Kill them! Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad!... Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it.”
Today the Vatican turned against one of those extremists when it excommunicated pro-Trump archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was the Vatican’s diplomat to the U.S. from 2011 to 2016, for “schism” after he refused to recognize the authority of Pope Francis. Viganò has repeatedly attacked Francis’s Catholic Church for being “inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable, and gay-friendly.”
Also today, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing Trump’s criminal trial for retaining hundreds of classified documents, to dismiss charges that can no longer be prosecuted in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that a president cannot be charged for crimes committed while engaging in “official acts.” They also called the case “politically motivated” and asked Cannon to stop the case entirely in light of Justice Clarence Thomas’s suggestion that Special Counsel Jack Smith was not properly appointed.
The other big news today was that the U.S. added 206,000 jobs in June, bringing the total number of jobs created under this administration to 15.7 million. Last month’s numbers were, once again, higher than economists expected and, according to economic analyst Steven Rattner, above job growth levels before the pandemic. He added that these jobs are not simply a bounceback from the depths of the pandemic: 6.2 million more Americans are employed now than before Covid hit.
Poking fun at the calls for Biden to step down, conservative lawyer George Conway posted: “Biden needs to RESIGN NOW before any more of these terrible job things are created.”
In a speech today in Madison, Wisconsin, Biden vowed to stay in the race, and the speech appeared strong enough that right-wing extremists, including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and activist Laura Loomer, posted on social media—falsely—that he was having a medical emergency aboard Air Force One. Tonight, George Stephanopoulos of ABC interviewed Biden without a teleprompter or notes, focusing only on Biden’s age without any questions about policy. ABC News posted the interview transcript with the president’s conversation portrayed the “g”s dropped off the words and with other colloquial pronunciations spelled out, as if it were dialect. Trump, whose words the press tends to turn into clean prose, has refused to do an interview under the same conditions.
“Project 2025” is nothing short of a 900-page blueprint for guiding Donald Trump’s second term of office if he’s re-elected.
After the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025 in April last year, when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, he had no problem with it.
But now that the nation is turning its attention to the general election, Trump doesn’t want Project 2025 to draw attention. Its extremism is likely to turn off independents and moderates.
So Trump is now claiming he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025.
This is another in a long line of Trump lies.
The Project 2025 playbook was written by more than 20 officials who Trump himself appointed during his first term. If he has “no idea” who they are, he’s showing an alarming cognitive decline.
One of the leaders of Project 2025 is Russ Vought. Vought was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, a key position in the White House. Vought is also drafting Trump’s 2024 GOP platform.
Another Project 2025 leader is John McEntee, another of Trump’s top White House aides. (McEntee recently went viral in a video in which he claimed he gives counterfeit money to homeless people to get them arrested.)
Even the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign appears in the Project 2025 recruitment video.
Trump says he “knows nothing” about Project 2025. And he says he “disagrees” with it.
As the former chairman of the Republican party, Michael Steele put it, “Ok, let’s all play with Stupid for minute … so exactly how do you ‘disagree’ with something you ‘know nothing about’ or ‘have no idea’ who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with?”
Trump may also be worried that Heritage president Kevin Roberts could alarm independents and moderates. On Wednesday, Roberts raised the prospect of political violence. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts told the War Room podcast, founded by Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
But let’s be clear. The Trump campaign platform is basically Project 2025. Trump’s Make America Great Again Pac is running ads calling it “Trump’s Project 2025”.
The Make America Great Again Pac also created the website TrumpProject2025.com. In case there’s any doubt that Trump and the Heritage Foundation are working in close partnership, Trump can be seen in this video praising the Heritage Foundation and saying he “needs” them to “achieve” his goals.
The close relationship between Trump and the Heritage Foundation goes back years. In 2018, the Heritage Foundation bragged that Trump implemented two-thirds of their policy recommendations in his first year – more than any other president had done for them.
The goals of Project 2025 are the same goals Trump tried to achieve in his first term or has been advocating in this campaign.
One key goal of Project 2025 is to purge all government agencies of anyone more loyal to the constitution than to Trump – a process Trump himself started in October 2020 when he thought he would remain in office.
Trump has promised to give rightwing evangelical Christians what they want. Accordingly, Project 2025 calls for withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, expelling trans service members from the military, banning life-saving gender affirming care for young people, ending all diversity programs, and using “school choice” to gut public education.
Project 2025 also calls for eliminating “woke propaganda” from all laws and federal regulations – including the terms “sexual orientation,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” “gender equality,” and “reproductive rights.”
Other items in the Project 2025 blueprint are precisely what Trump has called for on the campaign trail, including mass arrests and deportations of undocumented people in the United States, ending many worker protections, dropping prosecutions of far-right militias like the Proud Boys, and giving additional tax cuts for big corporations and the rich.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a “hoax.” Project 2025 calls for expanding oil drilling in the United States, shrinking the geographic footprint of national monuments, terminating clean energy incentives, and ending fossil-fuel regulations.
Trump has said he’d seek vengeance against those who have prosecuted him for his illegal acts. Project 2025 calls for the prosecution of district attorneys Trump doesn’t like, and the takeover of law enforcement in blue cities and states.
Project 2025 is, in short, the plan to implement what Donald Trump has said he wants to do if he’s re-elected.
Trump may want to distance himself from Project 2025 in order to come off less bonkers to independents and moderates, but he can’t escape it. The document embodies everything he stands for.
Poking fun at the calls for Biden to step down, conservative lawyer George Conway posted: “Biden needs to RESIGN NOW before any more of these terrible job things are created.”
To the Editor:
Re “Biden Reassures Governors of Fitness, but Concedes His Schedule Is Draining” (news article, July 5):
I am gobsmacked. President Biden told the Democratic governors that “he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m.” Is that supposed to ease our minds?
Why was there no pushback from the governors? Does the president not see that his remark is completely disqualifying? Does he not understand the demands of the presidency after serving three and a half years in office? Does he really expect the American public to just accept that at certain times of the day — crises be damned — the president needs a nap?
Why won’t Mr. Biden do the right thing and withdraw his candidacy, and why won’t the Democratic leadership demand that? If I felt that, despite the president’s undeniable physical and cognitive decline, he had a clear path to victory, it would be one thing. But he’s a long shot to win the presidency at best.
I’d rather roll the dice so that we can find a Democratic candidate who can prioritize the needs of the country over the need to sleep.
Eric Graber
Annapolis, Md.
To the Editor:
Re “Advisers Scramble to Contain Defections” (news article, July 4):
President Biden’s aides have scrambled to assure voters that he’s up to the job. That may indeed be an accurate answer, but to the wrong question.
At this point in the election, the only relevant question is not whether Mr. Biden can do the job, but whether, after his debate debacle, he can win the job. And everybody outside his family and inner circle knows that the answer to that one is “no.”
Paul Rosenthal
New York
To the Editor:
“Some in Room With Biden Say Lapses Are Increasing” (front page, July 3) enumerated instances that would be normal and not particularly alarming for an 81-year-old man — if he were not the leader of the world’s most vital democracy.
President Biden blames jet lag and too much travel for his poor performance in the debate. Has he not read the job description? We need a president who can think on his feet in all scenarios. Being president is the most difficult job in the world, and it ages everyone.
Mr. Biden has done a remarkable job managing all the competing and relentless issues and emergencies that came with the job, but he does not appear capable of continuing at this necessary pace for another four years.
Mr. Biden’s refusal to step aside in favor of younger, more capable contenders shows the kind of arrogance and egomania that we all experienced under Donald Trump. It fuels the “same on both sides” that Republicans use to try to excuse bad behavior and it turns off the voters in the middle — the voters who will decide this election and the future of our democracy.
It would not be a sign of weakness to step aside; it would be a sign of strength and leadership. The kind of leadership that George Washington exhibited when he chose to step away as our nation was just beginning. Now we the voters appeal to Mr. Biden to do the same in order to preserve it.
Anita Embleton
Lafayette, Calif.
To the Editor:
Re “Forcing Biden Out Would Have Only One Beneficiary: Trump,” by Charles M. Blow (column, July 4):
President Biden has had the most effective first four years of any president in my lifetime. I will never forget how grateful I was to the electorate when he won. Nor will I forget how grateful I am to him for steering us to this place in history.
I will not vote for him, however. His rapid deterioration is clear to all. I can see only a pending farce, not a presidency.
“Not to worry. The president is backed by a professional staff,” some say. I don’t vote for staff. I vote for the president. And this man is no longer fit for the job. If that stand means Donald Trump, so be it.
Eric Anderson
Teaneck, N.J.
