Joe Biden’s TIME interview: the good the bad and the ugly

President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with TIME magazine in the White House last week. The questions centered around foreign affairs, with interviewers Massimo Calabresi and Sam Jacobs asking about D-Day, Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, nuclear power, China, inflation, tariffs and immigration.

Back in March Americans generally agreed that the economy and foreign affairs were weak points in Biden’s administration. The TIME interview is unlikely to change anyone’s mind.

Cockburn identified a few overarching themes: Biden accused TIME of misreporting and leaving his accomplishments unreported. The first accusation: “The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”

Another theme: senility. While there were a few moments where Biden answered questions quite artfully, the poor old chap had to ask simple questions to assistants on standby, like, “And so that’s why we’re pushing hard for the — and we’re — Is our intelligence chief in? Where is he now?” TIME wrote (unintelligible) in their transcript three times. There were a couple of stutters: “to increase their, their, their, their, their profits.” At one point he confused Putin with Xi Jinping. And in answer to certain questions Biden… would… kind of just fade… off…

As for direct foreign policy, Cockburn was surprised by a few of Biden’s hot takes. When asked whose fault it was that the deal for a ceasefire from Israel for hostages had not been consummated, Biden said “Hamas. Hamas could end this tomorrow. Hamas could say (unintelligible) and done period. And, but, and the last offer Israel made was very generous in terms of who they’d be willing to release, what they’d give in return, et cetera.”

When asked if China has been meddling in elections, Biden said, “There, there, there, there is evidence that meddling is going on.” But then he later clarified, “I think China would have an interest — let me put it like this — would have an interest in meddling.” And then he further clarified, “Everybody, all the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man. Not a joke.”

There were very diplomatic and predictable answers about the importance of NATO, the strength of American alliances, Putin’s plan to reestablish the Soviet Union and a ceasefire in Gaza.

Near the end, Cockburn cringed as the interviewers asked intrepid questions which led Biden into circular arguments. The president first agreed that tariffs raise prices. Next, the questioners made the point that prices are up 18 percent since he took office, and wage increases have not kept pace, to which Biden blamed corporate America for ripping off the public.

The interviewer then asked the president if his newly announced tariffs will raise the prices on American consumers. Biden said: “No, because here’s the deal. There’s a difference. I made it clear to Putin [this is where he confuses Putin for Xi Jinping] from the very beginning that — I’m not, we’re not engaging in… For example, Trump wants a 10 percent tariff on everything. That will raise the price of everything in America. What I’m talking about, I said, we’re gonna play by the same rules… We’re not putting a tariff on. We’re just saying, if you want to do that, well, we’re gonna do that… we’re not talking about tariffs across the board.”

The interview ended with Biden implying that Trump’s appointment would tear the world apart. Right before that, Biden was asked if he was too old to lead… “Could you really do this job as an eighty-five-year-old man?” The president responded: “I can do it better than anybody you know. You’re looking at me, I can take you too.”