President Joe Biden’s final year in office was a disastrous capstone to a catastrophic presidency. In my last column, I offered my list of the 10 best things Biden and his administration did in the past year. Here are the 10 worst. It was hard to pick just 10.
10. He withheld critical weapons from Israel. Bending to pressure from his left-wing base, Biden blocked delivery of 2,000-pound MK84 bombs that Congress approved, and slow-rolled others, including 500-pound MK82 bombs and other weapons. These delays, and Biden’s pressure on Israel not to carry out an offensive in Rafah (where the Israel Defense Forces found and killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in October) helped drag out the war.
9. He wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on failed green-energy giveaways. As of November, his administration had delivered just 93 trucks after Congress provided $3 billion to buy electric vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service, and the administration had completed only about 200 charging stations in two years from a $7.5 billion program.
8. He failed to punish the International Criminal Court. Prosecutor Karim Khan not only indicted the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he threatened to prosecute members of Congress who pushed back on the ICC’s illegitimate actions. Yet unlike Trump, who as president imposed sanctions on the ICC for its investigations, Biden imposed no costs on the body, opposing sanctions in Congress and adding none of his own.
7. He broke his promise not to support court-packing. After telling Americans he was “not a fan” of the idea to add extra justices to the Supreme Court, Biden announced his support for a scheme that was court-packing by another name, in which he would negate Supreme Court justices’ constitutionally mandated lifetime appointments and replace them with 18-year “term limits.”
6. He and his administration engaged in a coverup of his cognitive decline. The White House repeatedly misled the American people about Biden’s mental fitness — assuring them, in Vice President Kamala Harris’s words, that the president was “vibrant,” “tireless” and “absolutely authoritative in rooms around the globe” — only to have those falsehoods exposed by a single debate performance. If Biden and his aides had been honest sooner, Democrats could have held a competitive primary and picked a more capable and appealing nominee.
5. He broke his promise not to pardon his son. NBC reported the deception was intentional, and that following Hunter’s conviction in June “it was decided … he would publicly say he would not pardon his son even though doing so remained on the table.” Biden justified his reversal by claiming that “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice” — essentially accusing his own Justice Department of engaging in politicized prosecutions and validating Trump’s critique that his administration was weaponizing the justice system.
4. He halted the federal executions of serial killers, child molesters and a cop killer. Biden, who is Catholic, said that he was “guided by my conscience” to grant clemency to 37 federal death row inmates who had committed horrific crimes. But he made support for abortion the centerpiece of his reelection campaign (before he dropped out).
3. He called Trump supporters “garbage.” Biden claimed afterward that he misspoke, but his plain words were clear: “The only garbage I see floating out there is [Trump’s] supporters.” Biden came to office promising to put his “whole soul” into “bringing America together.” Instead, he compared Republicans to racists and traitors, called them “semi-fascist” and “enemies” of America.
2. He broke his promise to avenge the Abbey Gate bombing. After the 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate killed 13 U.S. service members and injured 45 more, Biden warned: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” Yet, three years later, Biden prepares to leave the presidency having done nothing to punish those responsible for the deaths of the brave Americans who gave their lives carrying out his catastrophic retreat in Afghanistan.
1. He continued to slow-roll weapons to Ukraine with no strategy for victory. Biden didn’t provide Ukraine with long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles until April last year or F-16 fighter jets until July, and he did not to let Ukraine strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons until November. If Biden had given Ukraine all these weapons in 2022, when Russia was on its heels after failing to take Kyiv, Ukraine might have won the war long ago.
Taken together, my four annual lists of Biden’s worst actions in office tell the story of the worst presidency in my lifetime. Jan. 20 cannot come soon enough.