Alex Thompson at Axios published one of the most lenient and sympathetic pieces to explain that President Joe Biden’s harsh temper behind closed doors is not a big deal.
He is known to lash out at aides and staff:
In public, President Biden likes to whisper to make a point. In private, he’s prone to yelling.
- Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him. Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.
- The president’s admonitions include: “God dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!,” “Don’t f**king bullsh*t me!” and “Get the f**k out of here!” — according to current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts.
One official said, “No one is safe.”
Biden supposedly went off on then-COVID Czar Jeff Zients when the country didn’t have enough tests when the Omicron variant started to spread.
But Zients is now Biden’s chief of staff.
I guess getting yelled at by the president is “an internal initiation ceremony,” meaning “if Biden doesn’t yell at you, it could be a sign he doesn’t respect you.”
Chris Whipple notes in his book The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House that former press secretary Jen Psaki once said, “I said to [Biden] multiple times, ‘I’ll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.'”
But the anger is expressed in interrogations and not tantrums: “He’ll grill aides on topics until it’s clear they don’t know the answer to a question — a routine that some see as meticulous and others call ‘stump the chump’ or ‘stump the dummy.'”
The Axios report leaves out an important detail. It is well known that elderly people with “cognitive decline” are prone to angry outbursts.
I’m glad Jim Geraghty wrote about this at National Review, too. If you have older loved ones, you probably witnessed the behavior in person:
In a completely unrelated matter, home care specialists for the elderly explain that “cognitive decline can cause aging adults to have sudden outbursts of anger. Symptoms of cognitive decline include memory loss and difficulty understanding basic information. Your loved one might become upset if he or she can’t recall a particular word or remember the name of a familiar place. Your loved one’s anger could also be a sign of dementia, and it’s essential to have him or her evaluated by a physician if you notice serious signs of cognitive decline.”
We’ve seen signs of confusion in Biden.
But we’ve also seen him have outbursts in public. The facade of being a nice guy has fallen throughout his political career, but it’s more noticeable now as president since his handlers have been trying to portray him as a nice grandpa who loves his ice cream.
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