It's Monday, May 19, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and

events from a Christian worldview. Well, one thing's for certain it is going to be a very

interesting week in the United States, and in particular in American politics. And in this case, many of the

week's headlines are likely not to be dominated by the current president of the United States,

Donald J. Trump, but by his predecessor in office, President Joe Biden. And the big headlines are

going to have to do with what at least some major journalists are calling was nothing less than a cover-up

in terms of the president's intellectual ability and mental acuity when it came to his years in the

White House. And of course, it was in the course of the 2004 presidential election and in an

absolutely disastrous presidential debate that many Americans saw what they had

already seen, but they saw it in such a devastating way that eventually President Biden had to

withdraw from the race. And he did so even after the Republican National Convention in such a way

that when Kamala Harris became the standard bearer of the party, having served as Biden's

vice president, the fact is that in retrospect her candidacy was probably doomed from the start.

The big question is who is to blame, and those around Kamala Harris clearly blame Joe Biden,

those around Joe Biden, and that appears to include Joe Biden himself, blame Kamala Harris. Or at least they say that

if Biden had been at the top of the ticket, he believes he could have won. I think in the view of

most Americans, that assumption is pretty much insane. But the former president is sticking to his

argument, and he did so even in recent days when appearing on the news program, The View.

The Financial Times is one of the most authoritative and influential newspapers in Europe,

and that paper has responded to this controversy by pointing to the former president's appearance

on the view and describing the president as, quote, struggling to say that, quote, his claims of cognitive lapses were wrong, and then the paper ads before wandering off the topic.

And then these words, quote, his wife, Jill, quickly intervened, end quote.

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