'Is Joe Biden Up To The Job?': Steve Forbes Warns Foreign Crisis Could Challenge Lame-Duck Pres

2 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Steve Forbes spoke about what could come next after President Biden announced he would not run for reelection.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00One of the biggest takeaways of the past really few weeks, you could go back a few years,

00:06is that we're living in these unprecedented times and we thought this was going to be a 2020

00:11rematch. Obviously with this shake-up that has blown this election wide open. There's a lot of

00:17what we don't know. What do you think the biggest takeaway is here? What are you looking out for next?

00:24Well, I think how is this campaign, once the Democrats decide who they're going to run,

00:31how is this campaign going to be conducted? And the Democrats are going to want to drag it down

00:36because they are vulnerable on many issues. You can't walk away from what's happened to the border.

00:42You can't walk away from the fact that prices are higher. Yeah, the economy's growing. The

00:47best in the world? Yeah, because the world stinks right now in terms of overall growth. So

00:53most people don't feel the country is going in the right direction. And traditionally,

00:59if people don't feel the country is going in the right direction, the party in power loses.

01:05And by the way, one of the things that could happen, you may get a foreign crisis. Iran may

01:12decide to do something crazy. You may get a war, which is going to come. It's just a matter of time

01:18in northern Israel, southern Lebanon against Hezbollah. That that's going to be very hard

01:24to avoid. And that could blow up in the next few months. So there'll be a crisis there. And that

01:30then gets again to the question, is Joe Biden up to the job? And how much will that impact

01:37Vice President Kamala Harris should an international crisis rise up? I think they

01:43will give her prominence in what they call the situation room. They'll try to have Biden there

01:49looking like he's in charge and restrict the pictures that can be taken. And she'll be seen

01:56as asking the questions. They'll stage it. They'll know in advance what they're going to do. But they

02:01will stage manage a situation room, coping with the crisis and showing her being decisive crisis

02:09manager. Whatever you thought about her as vice president, as a president, she can rise to the

02:14occasion. So but the question is, what are they actually going to do about it? Because the team

02:20he has in place now that Biden has in place now has botched just about everything. Their Iran policy.

02:26Oh, we can appease Iran. We saw how that turned out. His is his national security advisor had a

02:33magazine article come out just before October 7th saying things are now quiet in the Middle East.

02:39Whoa. And China, are they calming down to ask the Philippine fishermen when China decides they're

02:46not allowed to fish in international waters? Would you say or would you think that a Kamala

02:52Harris presidency is essentially a Biden presidency 2.0 with all of this administration

02:59and the cabinet in place? Or do we know that yet? Well, I think given her record in the past,

03:05given what's happened in this administration, you would say it is 2.0. And one of the things

03:11that she's going to have to demonstrate, I think, to appeal to independents and to people

03:16in the swing states, that there's more to her. She just isn't a California lefty that she's got

03:23to demonstrate. How do you sort of separate yourself from what Biden did or you're going

03:28to have something different in the future without looking like you're being disloyal?

03:33And I'm old enough to remember 1968 when Lyndon Johnson, the president, withdrew.

03:39His vice president got the nomination, Hubert Humphrey, and he gave a very skillful speech

03:44finally at the end of September where people could nuance and say he's going to have a different

03:50Vietnam War policy than the incumbent. And that's when his campaign, which looks hopeless,

03:56turned around and he came within an eyelash of winning the presidency.

04:00So does she have those skills, those political skills, to show people it's not just going to

04:07be a carbon copy, but they're going to be positive things and pleasantly surprising

04:12things that might come if she wins.

'Is Joe Biden Up To The Job?': Steve Forbes Warns Foreign Crisis Could Challenge Lame-Duck Pres

Category

Transcript

Recommended