Joe Biden’s staff is always trying to limit his time with the media. He has been ducking serious interviews for a while.
It’s not hard to see why. He’s facing all kinds of crises — from the border and Bidenflation to the American hostages still being held by Hamas and America being continuously attacked by Iranian proxies. Biden seems at sea in addressing any of these issues, so his team doesn’t want to expose him to any real questions, regardless of how much the American people deserve answers and actions.
He’s also facing investigations into his involvement with his son’s financial dealings and the impeachment inquiry. Yet he keeps stepping in it there, too.
Yet, ducking interviews is a bad look. It’s also not helpful when he’s supposedly running for election. So what to do with such a problem?
Their answer? Have him do a softball interview with Conan O’Brien. They’re probably trying to make him seem relatable. But that isn’t the problem. The problem is in convincing the American people that he can do the job, given his failures and his issues. That’s not something that a softball interview with Conan is likely to solve.
Here are the serious things that they dealt with in the interview, starting with Conan’s hair that Biden said he wanted.
Biden, in a hard-hitting interview, tells Conan O'Brien: "I wish I had your hair."
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 19, 2023
Biden's last sit-down interview with an actual journalist was more than two months ago. pic.twitter.com/8fu1v1S3B0
Then Biden and Conan both took a petty shot at Trump, calling him Voldemort and the guy whose name is not to be mentioned.
“The other guy — I like that he’s ‘the other guy,’” O’Brien exclaimed with a big laugh.
“He’s like Voldemort now: His name shall not be mentioned,” O’Brien said of Trump.
They talked a lot about them both being of Irish descent. Biden then talked about how his mother encouraged him to take the offer from Barack Obama to be his vice presidential running mate.
President Biden tells Conan O'Brien about a phone call with his mother when she encouraged him to be Obama's vice president:
— The Recount (@therecount) December 20, 2023
“She said, ‘Let me get this straight, honey: the first Black man has a chance to be president. He says he needs you. You told him no?’ I said, whoa.” pic.twitter.com/qDQ9NMKbiG
Biden says he said he didn’t want to do it (likely because he didn’t want the number two job). But his mother convinced him. It’s funny what he says he told his mother about Obama here because it’s hard to forget the racist comment that he made about Obama previously.
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
It’s also funny because of what Obama supposedly said about Biden at one point, according to a Democratic source, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.”
Biden also spoke about his father, who he said was an “honorable” man who was all about “integrity.” “You had to be honest,” Biden said. I wonder what he would think of his son, who can’t seem to stop telling falsehoods and fantasy stories to puff himself up or pander to others.
They did talk about his stutter as a child and the tragedy in his life. But O’Brien doesn’t appear to have asked him any questions about current events or what he would like to do in the future for the country. In other words, it was designed to make him appear relatable and sympathetic, yet dealt not at all with answers, solutions, or competence.
