• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 12, 2025

Joe Biden’s appearance on “The View” last Thursday for his first live TV interview since leaving office went pretty much as expected.

The co-hosts asked him questions about Kamala Harris losing the election last November, his mental acuity while in the White House, Trump’s habit of insulting him every chance he gets, and Trump’s first 100 days in office.

“He’s had the worst first 100 days a president ever had,” said the former president, perhaps in retaliation for the many times Trump has called Biden “the worst president in the nation’s history” in those very same 100 days.

At least Biden waited 100 days before airing this opinion in accordance with presidential traditions, which is more than you can say about Trump.

In commenting on why he thinks Harris lost to Trump, Biden accused the Trump campaign of running a negative racist and sexist campaign.

“I wasn’t surprised [she lost] because they went the sexist route … I mean, this is a woman, she’s this, she’s that … I’ve never seen quite as successful and a consistent campaign undercutting the notion that a woman could lead the country and a woman of mixed race. And they played that to a fare-thee-well,” Biden said -- an accusation that is debatable.

He gave a particularly rambling answer to a question about his cognitive abilities in the final year of his administration.

“They are wrong,” Biden said of reports citing well-placed White House sources who now say the president was in decline. “There’s nothing to sustain that, number one. 

“Number two, you know, think of what we were left with,” he continued. “We were left with a circumstance where we had an insurrection when I started … not since the Civil War.

“We had a circumstance where we were in a position that we … the pandemic, because of the incompetence of the last outfit, end up over a million people dying, many people dying.

“We were also in a situation where we found ourselves unable to deal with a lot of just basic issues. … And so, we went to work and we got it done.” Biden said.

At this point, the ex-president seemed to lose his train of thought and his wife, Jill, jumped in to pick up the loose ball, so to speak. 

The former First Lady, who joined the show well after her husband, said those who say her husband was showing signs of a diminished mental acuity are wrong.

She said she witnessed a man who handled the responsibilities of his office with great concentration and comprehension morning, noon and night throughout his presidency.

It wasn’t the first time in last week’s “View” appearance that Biden seemed to lose his way. At another point, he began a description of the duties of a vice president and then forgot what he was going to say.

Another time, he criticized Trump for being naïve when it comes to dealing with Vladimir Putin. Biden said Putin is a dictator, who Biden has known “for 45 years.”

The claim is doubtful because 45 years ago in 1980, Putin was 28 years old and an agent-in-training in Soviet counter-intelligence. He was likely in no position to meet with then-Senator Biden.

Having said all that, how did Biden come across on TV? The former president, now 82, was cheerful and good-humored. 

No doubt, he enjoyed the warm welcome he received from the studio audience, who stood up and cheered when he entered the studio.

Even in his criticism of Trump, Biden was civil and well-mannered, which stands in stark contrast to the current president.

On the subject of the lapses cited above, they are unimportant now since he is not president. 

When he was in office, these events understandably took on a much greater significance, most notably in the debacle of Biden’s televised debate with Trump last June that doomed Biden’s campaign.

On “The View,” Biden said he is still looking for something “consequential” to do. But he was already President of the United States. Shouldn’t that be enough?