Bill Clinton Gives Dems Blunt Truths And Reprimands Biden

Bill Clinton expressed public misgivings about Joe Biden’s handling of his son’s pardon Wednesday–as he delivered a blunt assessment of why Democrats lost the election.

“I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it. It does weaken his case,” Clinton said of Biden’s repeated pledges not to pardon his son, which he reversed on Sunday night with a sweeping use of the presidential pardon power.

Clinton, the 42nd president, was speaking in Manhattan at The New York Times‘ Dealbook event, the first time he has been interviewed since Biden’s move.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, Dealbook’s host, had asked him whether the pardon was fatal for Biden’s legacy—and Democrats’ protestations that it is Trump who undermines the rule of law.

Wasn’t it, Sorkin asked, “a promise-breaking act that subjects Biden’s allies to yet another humiliation in a year packed with Biden-inflicted injuries”?

Clinton responded: “We had a lot better record than the Republicans, and what good did it do us? No one believes in anybody anymore.”

He then offered a partial defense of Biden’s actions–and implicit support for the president’s Trump-style claim that his son was the victim of a witch-hunt, saying: “The president is almost certainly right that his son received completely different treatment than he would have if he hadn’t been the president’s son.”

But he pointedly rejected comparisons between Biden’s pardon of his son before he was sentenced and Clinton’s own pardon of his brother in 2001 for a cocaine conviction, saying “my brother did 14 months in the federal prison for something he did when he was 20.”

Roger Clinton Jr. was charged with conspiracy possession and drug trafficking in a sting operation; Clinton pardoned him at the end of his second term in a move highly criticized at the time by Republicans.

Asked directly about why the Democrats lost, Clinton called Biden–with apparent affection–“a stubborn old Irishman.”

He reserved his most notable criticism of his party for their handling of the border crisis. “Too many Democrats thought it was politically incorrect to stand up for controlled borders. People hate chaos,” he said.

“The border was a totally legitimate issue, and would have affected the outcome [of the 2024 election],” Clinton suggested.

He was more reserved when Sorkin tried to draw him on the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s criticism that for Democrats “woke was broke”.

“There’s something to that,” he said, but he did not discuss his reported opposition to the Harris campaign’s handling of Trump’s transgender attack ads.

Clinton, looking ahead to 2028, was energetic in his praise for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. “I think Shapiro is a great talent,” he told Sorkin, who asked if a Jew could be president.

“He’s tough without being offish. He knows what’s going on.”

Shapiro declined to put his name forward as a candidate when Biden dropped out. The party rapidly coalesced around Kamala Harris, who chose Tim Walz as her vice presidential candidate over Shapiro.

“There was no plan by anybody,” Clinton said of replacing Biden. “Nobody had a plan because nobody knew what was going to happen. When people started calling me about it, I said, look, the President, Biden, won these primaries as a matter of law. They’re his delegates. So he’s the only one that can give it up.”

He bemoaned the length of time available for the party to replace Biden after the president finally withdrew from the race.

“By the time it happened, it was only, what, 107 days to the election. There was no time for a primary. We couldn’t have organized a primary that would have had a meaningful impact. It would have been total chaos.”

He looked back too, at the eventual failure of the Oslo Accords and the Middle East peace process he attempted.

He spoke in dismay at what Palestine leader Yasser Arafat walked away from in the 1990s: control of 96 percent of the West Bank, 4 percent of Israel to make up for the 4 percent settlers had taken of Palestine at that point, a capital in East Jerusalem, and borders in keeping with the 1967 War.

“I’m an old guy. I have my regrets – that’s one of them.”