Absolute Chaos Inside the White House Ensues, as the Backstabbing Begins – Opinion

In the past several days there have been many insider reports about the workings of White House. They are all negative, however.

The news broke Wednesday about infighting among Joe Biden’s staff. This left the question open as to who really is in control. One complaint revolved around the president’s handlers constantly coming behind him to change his statements. Biden was so ignorant about many of the crises, most of them self-inflicted, that it has plagued his tenure.

CNN has released a second report that provides more information about the chaos. The backstabbing began with the White House in disarray.

That’s in between pointing fingers at each other for whose fault it is. They have the same internal meetings over and over, insisting that they need to change up their whole approach to how they’re using Biden – and then each time watch as nothing changes.

The older aides think the younger ones are too involved in tweet-by-tweet thinking that they claim lost the 2020 election. Younger aides give up – what’s the point of working up innovative ideas, they ask themselves, if the ideas constantly get knocked down and the aides get looked down on for suggesting them?

It is not uncommon to see the divisions between older and younger staffers. Biden is surrounded by a group of “yes men”, including the current Chief of Staff Ron Klain. They have been there for him all his life. Over the decades, they’ve grown incredibly controlling as well. Those who joined the administration to fill out its ranks have found themselves constantly being shot down, while the older generation of Biden apparatchiks plods ahead doing things the way they’ve always done them.

That’s not to say that the younger staffers are right in their strategic suggestions. There is rarely a right answer, because President Biden is a senile, addled man clearly incapable of performing his duties. Are more social media hits going to help Biden’s approval? Of course not, and color me skeptical that there’s some magic elixir of messaging and image crafting that will fix what ails the administration.

Regardless, the divisions run deep, and nothing in CNN’s write-up on the situation should lead anyone to believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

They’ll say he’s answering reporters’ questions whenever he’s asked, while nixing interview requests to avoid the hours of prep and possible clean-up. They’ll acknowledge that Biden himself feels shut off enough that he’s quietly had a half-dozen sessions with favored writers since the fall, like last month’s lunch with the New York Times’ Tom Friedman, in which the columnist shared his own impressions of Biden’s off-the-record thoughts, with only the tuna sandwich, fruit bowl and milkshake approved for publication.

Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff, suggested a compromise plan to allow Biden to hold one town hall per month in an effort to get some media attention and unscripted moments. It was easy to get lost in the maws of blame and dysfunction. Some people liked the idea of at least shaking up things, while others mocked the concept as outdated. Others complained about the time-consuming logistics involved.

At the end of it all, no town halls were scheduled. An aide to the White House said Wednesday that more town halls were planned in the future.

Klain’s idea to do town halls is not surprising, given how politically inept he is. The last thing that will help Biden is propping him up for an hour a month on cable news–having him repeat the same tired talking points–while delivering nothing but negative results for the American people. Once again, I look beyond the differences among his staff to conclude that the problem is with the president.

That’s made obvious by the mention that they won’t let him do interviews for fear of having to do hours of “clean-up.” When the man in charge can’t even be trusted to sit down with friendly media, it should be obvious how much trouble the administration is.

Still, I’d frame all of these insider reports as mostly deflections. Consider this example.

The president is still struggling to adjust to his new office. The country is pulling itself apart, pandemic infections keep coming, inflation keeps rising, a new crisis on top of new crisis arrives daily and Biden can’t see a way to address that while also being the looser, happier, more sympathetic, lovingly Onion-parody inspiring, aviator-wearing, vanilla chip cone-licking guy – an image that was the core of why he got elected in the first place.

“He has to speak to very serious things,” explained one White House aide, “and you can’t do that getting ice cream.”

The chaos is real. Biden does have serious staffing issues. But, his biggest problem lies with the man on the fake Oval Office set. This isn’t a messaging problem. It’s not bad luck. Rather, Biden is just a horrible, arrogant leader who can’t get out of his own way. Ignoring Biden’s aviators is a delusion. Having him eat icecream is a way to alter public perception.

On the other hand, putting him on national TV with his serious face on isn’t going to do anything either. Biden, in fact, is the real problem. Even the best strategy in the world can’t take a mouse and turn it into a lion.