How Biden became Trump’s useful political milksop

It turns out that Joe Biden is one of the best things ever to happen to Donald Trump. Sure, Trump was so peeved by his loss to Biden in 2020 that he inspired an abortive insurrection against Congress, but his defeat gave him a grace period of four years to prepare for a fresh term. If the rapidity with which he is upending the federal government is anything to go by, Trump benefited immensely from his protracted exile in Mar-a-Lago, not to mention the welter of court cases, federal and state, that he endured.

Now Trump is exploiting Biden once more to provide a further fillip to his political fortunes. The only thing missing from his Wednesday Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was a declaration that Biden had connived at the white genocide that is supposedly being perpetrated against farmers in the former apartheid state. Otherwise, Biden has become an unwilling adjunct to Trump who deploys his name to justify everything bad that is happening, whether it’s a shaky economy or the war in Ukraine or China’s rise, or to justify his own misdeeds, whether it’s pointing to Hunter Biden’s escapades or the original sin of a somnambulatory Joe Biden grasping for a second term.

In one version, it’s Biden the milksop who is the culprit. If Russian President Vladimir Putin had only respected Biden, we are told, he would never have invaded Ukraine in the first place. On April 26, for example, Trump declared, “This is Sleepy Joe Biden’s War, not mine. It was a loser from day one, and should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened if I were President at the time. I’m just trying to clean up the mess that was left to me by Obama and Biden, and what a mess it is.” How this squares with Trump’s earlier claim in February 2022 that Putin was “very savvy” and a “genius” to invade Ukraine is another question.

Trump has adopted the very same line of Biden as cowering dupe about Iran as well. During his recent trip to Riyadh, Trump explained that Biden had heedlessly sought to revive a nuclear deal with Iran and funneled billions to it. “Unfortunately, instead of confronting these destructive forces, the last US administration chose to enrich them and empower them and give them billions and billions of dollars. The Biden administration, the worst administration in the history of our country, by the way, spurned our most trusted and long-standing Gulf partners, and I can say partners worldwide.” He added, “The Biden administration’s extreme weakness and gross incompetence derailed progress toward peace, destabilized the region and put at risk everything we had worked so hard to build together. And when you think of the great achievements that you’ve made to do it in light of a pretty hostile administration, an administration that was not a believer, it makes your achievements even greater, makes them even greater, you know that.”

The most effective line of attack has turned out to be one that Trump mooted during the 2024 campaign but that is now being prosecuted by the establishment media and leading Democrats themselves. The notion that an actual coverup took place in the White House – which, incidentally, would impute greater stealth than Trump has usually been willing to concede about the Biden administration – has, of course, been advanced by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in their bestselling new book Original Sin. Many Democrats, including Congressman Ro Khanna, who said “I made a mistake” in backing Biden’s reelection bid, are now falling all over themselves to detach themselves from the former president.

Then there is Trump, who initially sent a goodwill message to Biden after he disclosed his prostate cancer diagnosis. That lasted a day. Since then, Trump has returned to form, alleging a fresh cover-up. “Somebody is not telling the facts,” Trump said. “That’s a big problem.” Now Biden’s use of the autopen is coming into the gunsights of leading Republicans. House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer asked, “Who was making the decisions? Who was authorizing his signature? Was it him?” Call it Pengate.