Yesterday was a big news day, between the Supreme Court allowing the so-called TikTok ban to go through, Joe Biden claiming he could declare a constitutional amendment into existence, and CNN getting walloped with a multi-million dollar defamation award (and the jury is still out on punitive damages), so this video fell through the cracks, but it is worth paying attention to. The Free Press interviewed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and in the midst of it, he dropped a bombshell. Watch the whole thing:
EXCLUSIVE: @SpeakerJohnson tells @BariWeiss that President Biden hasn’t been in charge for a while.
In January 2024, when Johnson and Biden were alone in the Oval Office, the president couldn’t recall an important executive order he had signed just three weeks earlier.
Johnson… pic.twitter.com/OEbLxKBQBF
— The Free Press (@TheFP) January 18, 2025
The cut off text reads:
In January 2024, when Johnson and Biden were alone in the Oval Office, the president couldn’t recall an important executive order he had signed just three weeks earlier.
Johnson recalled telling Biden: ‘Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that?’
Biden, according to Johnson, was stunned. ‘I didn’t do that.’
‘He genuinely didn’t know what he had signed,’ Johnson said. ‘And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble—who is running the country?’ Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.’
‘The Free Press in D.C.’ episodes of Honestly are presented by Uber and X. Tune into this episode at 10:00 a.m. Monday on X.
(LNG stands for ‘liquid natural gas.’)
You might be tempted to say, ‘where’s the news? We’ve known that Biden wasn’t all there for years.’ Indeed, this author wrote a piece discussing strong evidence that we had in 2020 that Biden was at times incompetent. But what is unique here is that we are not aware of any time where anyone presented evidence that Biden was incompetent when he took action as president.
Previously, we argued that the incoming Trump administration should investigate the Biden administration in order to determine whether or not any of Biden’s actions could be nullified, entitled: ‘Joe Biden’s Potential Incompetence Threatens Chaos in Our System (And We Should Embrace the Chaos).’ Our basic point is that if Biden had signed a contract as a private citizen or had written a will under these conditions, these documents would be subject to challenge based on the claim that he was not competent to sign them—so why should it be any different for any actions he personally took as president? As we wrote back then:
[T]here are two ways presidents act: Either they do something directly (like a veto or pardon) or they delegate power to others. If Joe Biden was not competent, all the things he did directly are called into question. And while that doesn’t call into question the actions of the people Biden delegated his power to—such as the Secretary of Transportation—what if he wasn’t competent when he appointed Pete Buttigieg?
Well, another way they act is through executive orders. Naturally, we don’t assume presidents write every order that they sign, or even most of them, but we do expect them to know what they are signing and Johnson’s interview is strong evidence that Biden didn’t. And if he didn’t know because he was not competent enough to learn about it and retain the information, this author thinks that this is a valid reason to challenge this executive order. Many executive orders create winners and losers, and the people who lost money due to this order should challenge it in court by arguing that Biden was not competent when he issued it.
‘But that would spell chaos in our system!’ you might say. And you are right, which is why I suggested we embrace the chaos:
[A] fraud has been perpetuated on the American people. They were told they had a president, when much of the time they didn’t. And the people who carried out this fraud did this presumably because they wanted the power and the specific executive actions they were able to obtain. …
Someday we will probably have another president whose competence can genuinely be called into question—it becomes almost mathematically inevitable if America survives just 200 years into the future. What lesson should the history of the Biden years tell the future? That if you can just cover it up, you can get away with it? Or that when it is discovered, all of those gains made at the expense of an incompetent president would be lost?
On to reactions:
again, if people illegally designated presidential authority to themselves — eg, by *signing executive orders* or by *having a cognitively afflicted president sign them without understanding them* — then THESE PEOPLE NEED TO GO TO PRISON https://t.co/3Xj4hd0uDf
— David Hines (@hradzka) January 18, 2025
We are not aware of any crime that would have been committed in that scenario but we think Congress can and should pass a law making it a crime for a member of the executive branch to fail to report evidence of presidential incompetence. But, we also suspect that Trump won’t be willing to sign it, because he has been subjected to specious claims that he is incompetent.
Johnson should have kept this story to himself because it *really* doesn’t make him look good. If, as speaker, he knew that the president was compromised and that an unelected cabal was running the show, he has an obligation to do something about that. To keep it under wraps…
— Herbie Robinson (@hrobinsonfrclev) January 18, 2025
The cut off text reads:
To keep it under wraps until he can safely spill the beans a few hours before Trump takes office is cowardly and we’re lucky something catastrophic didn’t happen.
This author agrees that Johnson shouldn’t have kept quiet about this. But we sympathize with the desire to keep it secret. As we said, our legal theory that every action Biden took can and should be challenged on the basis that he was not competent threatens to unleash pure chaos in our system. This author says we should embrace that chaos, to send the message that people cannot profit off of an incompetent president. But we can understand why a person wouldn’t be ready to embrace the chaos.
This is shocking.
Biden could not remember the contents of an executive order he signed 3 weeks earliar.
Americans deserve to know who has been running the country these past four years.
This should not been allowed to have happened. https://t.co/IGfitMks3b
— Guy Spier 🎗️🇮🇱 🇺🇦 (@GSpier) January 18, 2025
Truly disturbing. Speaker Johnson tells @BariWeiss he wasn’t aware he’d halted LNG sales to Europe… https://t.co/CNvX3k3WFK
— Martha MacCallum (@marthamaccallum) January 18, 2025
He will not remember his own presidency. Those who allowed this should be shamed and banned from politics. pic.twitter.com/2Aq3gPwwmC
— Ethan Keller (@theEthanKeller) January 18, 2025
I think the Democrats should be appalled that their elected President has been handled for a probably for a long time. I knew some of the decisions he has made do not line up with the Joe Biden of the past. Your elected leaders have been hiding it from you.
— Curious (@Sammygirl252) January 18, 2025
Of course, the rank-and-file in the Democratic Party would be likely to be appalled to hear this. On the other hand, we think the elites were generally in on it and overall care more about power than principle. That is why we think it is important to nullify any executive action taken when he was incompetent—to show them that this is not a viable method to exercise power.
The noise and harumph! of Trump’s first hundred days will likely drown stories like this out, but I’m super curious about the “nervous messed-up marionettes” pulling the stings of the kabuki theatre that was the Biden Administration.
— Patrick (@patrickberzai3) January 18, 2025
* Second first hundred days.
Seriously, we might be in for something unlike anything seen before in American politics. Trump gets to do the ‘first hundred days’ again, after having four years to think about what he would do if he had a second shot. And all this while he doesn’t have to worry about re-election. That could be a recipe for a political period like none we have ever seen before.
Moving on, even Donald Trump’s former senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting Stephen Miller weighed in on the controversy:
They could have put anything in front of Joe Biden and told him to sign it. He had no idea what was happening. https://t.co/5kj7a3kqpi
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 18, 2025
(Don’t @ us. We are making a joke.)
LNG: The fact that Biden didn’t know about the LNG freeze makes it even more important that Trump lift the pause on day one. https://t.co/4mJENd88lm
— @amuse (@amuse) January 18, 2025
It’s difficult to say which is worse.
1. Biden who has no clue what is going on.
2. Kamala Harris.— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 18, 2025
I have mixed feelings. It’s bad, I know, but the thought of Kamala as President for even a short while is frightening
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 18, 2025
That would be the other reason why we sympathize with Johnson’s decision to keep quiet, even if we don’t agree. We can understand why no conservative would want Kamala Harris to be president. After all, we just voted pretty decisively against that exact possibility last November. Still, now that the Biden administration is all but over, its time to start nullifying any actions he took while incompetent.
Let’s not mince words: a corrupt, hard-left deep state has been in charge. The bureaucracy ran wild.
Thank goodness we have bold, competent outsiders coming in to clean up the mess 🇺🇸. https://t.co/Juzl1K2fla
— Joe Lonsdale (@JTLonsdale) January 18, 2025
Remember when I introduced a resolution calling on Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment? Good times. https://t.co/pmdHuuFGjT
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) January 18, 2025
Biden apparently didn’t know “he” had paused LNG exports to Europe
This exposes a critical flaw in the 25th Amendment https://t.co/KJNhQMg87k
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 18, 2025
We think legislation imposing a positive duty on administration staff to report evidence of incompetence—backed with criminal penalties if you fail to do so—would address this issue.
Finally:
Remember: Dems and legacy media fully intended to prop Biden up for 2024 election & only stopped because debate exposed reality to Americans fed propaganda by “popular” press. https://t.co/vUOgdbXOKz
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) January 18, 2025
Pretty much.
RELATED: WATCH: Rambling, Raving Biden Declares that the Equal Rights Amendment Is in the Constitution ‘NOW’
BREAKING: Lame Duck Biden Attempts to Declare That the Equal Rights Amendment Is Ratified
WATCH: Wikipedia Co-Founder Describes How the Site Turned to Leftist Garbage
Joe Biden’s Potential Incompetence Threatens Chaos in Our System (And We Should Embrace the Chaos)
Ana Navarro-Cárdenas Gets Wrecked on Bad Pardon History (And Let’s Talk about Hunter’s Pardon)