Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American

American politics and the Trump presidency for the new Spectator USA website.

I'm joined today by John Rick MacArthur, who is publisher of Harper's and a much-loved spectator contributor.

And we are going to be talking about Joe Biden and asking what's the matter with him.

Rick, I think it's been, I mean, Biden for a while has been sort of, you know, he's been coming top in the polls of democratic candidates for 2020,

and he's a former vice president.

He's thought to be much loved by people and certainly by the party.

And then this week, a lot of listeners will have noticed.

There's been sort of various allegations,

not that he's a sexual predator so much as that he's inappropriately handsy with women.

And this appears to be a kind of campaign

to stop him putting his hat into the ring,

perhaps because he's likely to win the nomination, or perhaps because

there's just a lot of people that don't really like him in the Democratic Party. Is this a fair

summary of where we are with Joe Biden at the moment? Yes, although it's unclear who is driving

the train, the anti-Biden train. Harper's Magazine, as usual, we published something

contrarian last month on the cover, pointing out that Biden had a rather disastrous legislative

record on several counts, whether or not you are a progressive or a left winger or you are a centrist

who cares about American foreign policy, he's really had a terrible career in terms of actual

policymaking. The thing that upsets or should upset left-wingers or liberals is his steadfast support of the

financial industry, as we euphemistically call it in the United States. He's always been for

deregulation coming from Delaware, which is a tax haven for corporations. He's always voted in favor of

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