It was the high point (or perhaps the low point) of what was arguably one of the most contentious periods of American presidential politics. The date was July 17, 2024. Despite his continued insistence that he was in the race to win it, Joe Biden was about to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris as the party's nominee. Biden was preparing to leave an event in Las Vegas to head back to Washington, but suddenly his itinerary changed. The public was assured that this was the result of nothing more than a positive COVID test and they were acting out of an abundance of caution. But recently released radio traffic on the ground in Vegas suggests something else was happening. Medical workers sent along messages saying that the President was "code 421." That's shorthand for signaling that the President was 'likely sick or injured.' So what was really going on?
From the NY Post:
Police in Las Vegas were told to prepare to meet President Biden at two local hospitals days before he ended his re-election bid, according to newly released dispatch audio, raising new questions about what the White House described as a positive COVID-19 test that forced him to cancel a campaign event.Biden, 81, was never hospitalized July 17, instead flying Air Force One back to his beach house in Delaware, where he remained before issuing a statement on social media four days later announcing his withdrawal from the race.The president was not actually seen in public July 23, when he returned to Washington to explain his decision to drop out in an address to the nation the following evening.
To be clear, while Biden's schedule changed, he didn't go to a hospital that day. He was diverted from his original destination and went to his vacation home in Delaware. But he made no public appearances during the subsequent four days until releasing a statement on social media (not on camera) saying that he was dropping out. Was this some sort of misunderstanding or was the President undergoing a more serious medical trauma that the public was never told about?
There is an argument to be made in favor of it being a misunderstanding. After all, the phrase "likely sick or injured" does include the word "sick." Anyone who has registered a positive COVID test could rightly be considered to be potentially sick. That's particularly true for someone who has already had the virus at least twice and had been injected with every vaccine known to man. Also, the fact that Biden wasn't taken to a hospital suggests that they weren't too worried about him.
Still, the lack of transparency with the public is worrying. The country expects to be apprised of the President's health on a regular basis. All of this was unfolding just as the world was basically catching fire and nobody seemed to be entirely sure who was running the nation at that point. (We're still not entirely sure today, now that you mention it.)
Unfortunately, we've grown used to a total lack of transparency from the Biden administration. The Kamala Harris "quasi-administration" has been similarly opaque. But if Joe Biden was experiencing a health emergency, particularly at that moment in time, the country deserved to be filled in on the details. Some day all of this information will leak out, but we remain in a period of secrecy and denial from our elected officials. This is no way to run an airline.
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