Joe Biden, the Democrats’ tell-tale heart

How Biden blew it

Joe Biden’s final act is to serve as the Democrats’ tell-tale heart. His public appearances are a haunting reminder of the lie told by so many in their party: that there was nothing wrong with the 46th president during his time in office.

Biden is on a “don’t call it a comeback” tour ahead of the release of a book from Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper that threatens to reveal the poor physical and mental state the president was in during his time in office. So far we’ve learned that Biden’s “physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024 that advisors privately discussed the possibility he’d need to use a wheelchair if he won re-election.”

In order to preempt some of the devastating critiques from the upcoming book, Original Sin, Biden and Dr. Jill Biden have been on a media blitz of sorts – but it hasn’t panned out exactly as planned. Joe mumbled his way through a softball interview on The View. Meanwhile an unnamed Biden defender rushed to Axios to claim that “we are still waiting for someone, anyone, to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline.”

But some Democrats are increasingly willing to critique the former president. Biden “totally fucked us,” David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and co-managed the 107-day Kamala Harris campaign, said in the upcoming book. “It’s all Biden,” he said, lambasting the turn of events that left Harris only a few months to patch together a campaign for the Democrats.

The Democrats’ circular firing squad isn’t showing signs of ending any time soon. The party is currently trying to oust David Hogg, one of its top elected representatives, in part due to his desire to primary mainly elderly Democrats out of office in 2026.

On our radar

SAUDI SALE President Trump signed a $600 billion deal with Saudi Arabia, which includes selling the Kingdom $142 billion in weapons.

HOUSE PARTY House committees are ironing out vital details of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” today. It would increase the debt limit by $4 trillion, as well as repeal the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness and ending tax on tips and overtime.

QATAR PRESS  Vocal supporters of the President are denouncing him for accepting the gift of a $400 million plane from Qatar. Laura Loomer said, “Qatar is not our friend” while the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro said accepting the plane was “not America first.”

Europe is high on a bizarre cocaine conspiracy theory

A lot of consequential events have unfolded since Cockburn last wrote to you. The US and China climbed down from their trade war; the Diddy trial kicked off in New York, and there was another systems outage at Newark Airport. Yet no real story has grabbed your correspondent’s attention quite like the viral (and fake) one that was plastered all over his X feed this weekend.

A number of “verified” accounts were up in arms over a grainy video that, they allege, showed French President Emmanuel Macron attempting to conceal a bag of white powder that he’d had on the desk during a meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as they headed to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The trolls insist these world leaders all get together to rail lines of marching powder before vowing to send more arms and money Ukraine. But to the naked eye, it’s not a baggie Macron is grabbing. It’s a tissue.

Even more shocking than the allegation was that the Élysée opted to dignify it with a response. “When European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs,” their official X account posted. “This fake news is being spread by France’s enemies, both abroad and at home. We must remain vigilant against manipulation.”

Russian foreign affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the clip: “It’s as if the Almighty Himself is lifting the veil on this putrid spectacle,” she said, after calling Zelensky an “unstable cocaine addict.”

Alex Jones, of Infowars fame, claimed the video was part of a pattern. “It’s all of them!” he wrote, alongside a specious video of former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. “Cocaine appears to be the preferred drug of the globalist elite/scumbag, death cult!” he then posted, alongside a video of the Biden family, including Hunter, dancing on a balcony. OK, perhaps no smoke without fire on that one.

Trump’s ‘fat shot’ tale

Before jetting off to Arabia, President Trump was generous enough to regale the Oval Office with a personal anecdote. While signing an executive order on prescription drug pricing, Trump recounted a conversation with an overweight businessman who takes what the President branded “the fat shot drug”:

I’ll tell you a story, a friend of mine who’s a businessman… very very very top guy. Most of you would have heard of him. Highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat… the fat shot drug. And he called me up, and he said, uh, “President,”– he calls me “pres”– he used to call me Donald, now he calls me “President,” say that’s nice respect but he’s a smart guy, but he’s a rough guy, smart guy… very successful, very rich, I wouldn’t even know how we would know this, ’cause he’s got common sen– “President, could I ask you a question?” I go, “what?” “I’m in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.” I said, “it’s not working,” I said. He said, “I just paid $88, and in New York I pay $1,300, what the hell is going on?”

As well as rebranding Ozempic and Wegovy in the national consciousness forever, Trump had everyone guessing which wealthy friend of Trump’s was shocked by the weight loss drug’s price in London. Early speculation that he may have been talking about senior advisor Elon Musk appear unfounded: the X CEO may travel the world a lot, but it’s not like him to discreetly complain about pricing. Cockburn wonders if one of Trump’s newly appointed ambassadors to Europe might be a likelier candidate…

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