The Wall Street Journal on Thursday published an extensive report on the secret negotiations to secure the release of Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian prison. It includes a startling passage about how President Joe Biden, sometimes referred to as "Sleepy Joe," almost botched the prisoner exchange because has no idea what's going on, and strongly suggests that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is actually running the show.
The following scene involves Gershkovich's mother, Ella, ambushing Biden in a handshake line at the White House Correspondents' Dinner earlier this year. She relayed a message from Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, and urged Biden to call German chancellor Olaf Scholz in order to advance the multilateral deal:
Ella was at her second White House Correspondents' Dinner that month and joined Biden’s handshake line to deliver another backchannel message, this time with more specificity. An official from Carstens' office had told her to ask Biden to call the German leader to move things forward. And one of her sources had told her that it would be bad for Scholz to back out after making a commitment. To make her case, she'd have only seconds.
"We need more," she said to the president. "Can you please call Chancellor Scholz?" Biden said he had made that call. Blinken, standing next to the president, looked down, then gently clarified, saying they would make the call. "I promise, I promise, I promise," Biden said, before the handshake line moved on.
Two days later, President Biden sent a letter to Scholz, a formal request that gave the Chancellor the mechanism he needed to formalize a deal.
Mainstream journalists such as CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere have touted this moment as an example of Biden's superhuman vigor and diplomatic skill. A nonpartisan reading of the passage suggests the opposite is true. We have the mother of an American prisoner in Russia waiting in a handshake line to give Biden a message from his own hostage negotiator. Upon relaying that message—please call the German chancellor—Biden insists he already has. Blinken is forced to gently clarify that Biden doesn't know what he's talking about. Biden never makes that call—a letter is sent bearing his signature.
One can see how a CNN journalist might interpret this passage as an example of a functioning government and an 81-year-old president at the top of his game. But it's impossible to see how a normal, well-adjusted individual could read those same paragraphs and draw the same conclusion.
Who, exactly, is running our government?