Welcome to this emergency edition of the Commentary magazine Daily Podcast.

We are recording this at, beginning at 8.20 PM on Wednesday, July 24th, 2024, we have just finished watching Joe Biden's announcement, formal

announcement that he will not be running for a second term for president and by

we I mean executive editor A Greenwald hi Abe. Hi Abe.

Hi, John. Senior editor Seth Mandel. hi Seth, Hi Seth,

Hi John.

And media commentary columnist Christine

Christine,

Hi Christine.

Hi, John. So we not only have Biden's speech to talk about,

we had earlier in the day, Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress,

and Abe has some things I think to say about Donald Trump's rally speech which happened between the two.

So we have a landmark moment, unprecedented moment, Biden acknowledging explaining his reasons why he is not running for

president he needed to explain nothing because his appearance the tone of his voice and the way that he was moving and

acting were explanation enough and now that we have seen it you can't unsee it.

Any idea that anybody had that he could have made this run was completely vitiated by this 17 minutes or so of him struggling

to get through a seated speech at the resolute desk.

And I think what's interesting about it is not that he had any sort of extensive tongue twisting moments.

It was just how obvious it was that it was hard work to do what he was doing and that there was a kind of vacancy in his face and in his eyes throughout and softness and a and

a diminished energy throughout.

It had, I think, about it, an interesting contrast

to the text in which he said he would serve the next six months he would

...