As the situation continues to get worse in Afghanistan, Joe Biden has gone missing, but as of yesterday, he was still planning to campaign for California governor Gavin Newsom.
“I can confirm the President does still plan to go and campaign for Governor Newsom in California,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday. “I don’t have a date for you at this point in time, but that is still, certainly, his plan.”
Governor Newsom faces a recall election, in which conservative talk radio host Larry Elder allegedly has a chance of victory.
In an interview with Breitbart on Wednesday, Elder dared Biden to come to California.
“I’ll believe it when I see Joe Biden come here. I’m not sure he’s going to,” Elder said. “His popularity now is in the low forties — I think I saw 41%. Most Americans don’t even believe he’s home — that somebody else is in charge. So it’s going to backfire. But let him bring it in. Have him come in and try to defend Gavin Newsom’s record on crime, and on homelessness, and on the outrageous cost of living, and on the way he ignored science and shut down the state to the point where a third of small businesses are gone forever.”
It’s hard to imagine that Joe Biden will still make the trip to California as Americans are now dying in Afghanistan because of his incompetence, but it seemed like a bad idea earlier this week, too. So, until the White House says otherwise, we can assume that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are still planning to campaign for Newsome in the near future. Newsom himself expressed gratitude for Biden’s pending visit and praised him in the wake of the botched withdrawal.
“I’m incredibly proud of President Biden,” Newsom said last week. “I’m incredibly enthusiastic to have his support on [a] ‘no’ vote and look forward to him coming out here.”
Larry Elder expects Biden’s visit will ultimately be canceled. “If Joe Biden wants to come here and lend his presence to California, I welcome that opportunity. But I don’t believe he’s going to do it.”
Joe Biden’s RealClearPolitics average has been underwater for nearly a week now. Without a doubt, his political capital has taken a huge hit, and it might actually be beneficial to Newsom not to be linked to Joe Biden.
Of course, the real question is whether Biden is too tone-deaf to realize that going to California to campaign for Newsom is a terrible idea—especially now. That the White House confirmed yesterday—before we’d even evacuated all of our people—that Biden still planned to go was in poor taste. Heck, even if Kamala Harris campaigns with Newsom it will still look bad. Until every single American is out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, they have no business taking campaign trips.
It’s time for Joe Biden to act like a commander-in-chief.
