Bumbling biden‘s credibility test
In speech before United Nations General Assembly today
President Biden, already staggering from failures at home, faces a severe credibility test internationally as he gives his maiden speech before the United Nations General Assembly.
Whether it’s a drone strike that killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan, a submarine deal that the French are upset at being cut out of, or a plan to push COVID booster shots that the World Health Organization is protesting, the bumbling Biden administration is on the defensive around the world.
Today’s U.N. address on a world stage could be a pivotal moment for the 78-year-old president, whose approval ratings domestically are tanking as well.
In fact the only place he’s probably doing even worse than the U.S. is in the international community. And that’s saying a lot. You’d think Biden would be revered by foreign nations compared with Donald Trump, but that isn’t happening.
Biden needs to restore credibility with our U.S. allies quickly but it’s unlikely that’s going to happen at the U.N., where pitfalls await him. A single speech isn’t going to make foreign leaders all of a sudden think he’s competent.
But it’s happened before. Ronald Reagan had his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” moment late in his presidency and John Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Germany in 1963.
It’s hard to imagine the sometimes feeble looking Biden is going to replicate those speeches — even with a Teleprompter. Some world leaders, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and France’s Emmanuel Macron, are expected to skip the hybrid U.N. event.
Today, Biden is expected to call for an international summit to combat the global coronavirus pandemic, as well as highlight issues like climate change and humanitarian aid.
That will be the easy part. But the optics of the speech, including how well he can deliver the speech, will be just as important.
Biden also will be closely watched on how he defends the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is still fresh in the minds of the international community.
Unlike Trump, who showed nothing but contempt for the U.N., Biden has a history of defending the organization, so that should help with his reception.
Senior administration officials (on background of course) gave the media a glimpse of what the speech should be like early this week, saying Biden plans to rally the world around the “major challenges of our time” like global warming.
But that will be difficult given the fact that the world is still reeling from the fact that the U.S. killed innocent civilians, including children, in a mistaken drone strike.
France has also pulled its ambassador from Washington in protest of being cut out of a new world partnership and losing an important submarine contract.
And even the World Health Organization is peeved at the U.S. for announcing plans to give Americans booster shots instead of distributing the vaccine around the world.