By The Editorial Board | The Wall Street
Journal
President
Joe Biden participates in a CNN town hall at Baltimore Center Stage in
Baltimore, Oct. 21. - PHOTO: NICHOLAS KAMM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The President’s town hall performance is cause for concern.
White House handlers shield President Biden
from the press as much as possible, and Thursday’s town hall on CNN shows why.
Even with a friendly audience and softball questions, Mr. Biden’s performance
revealed why so many Americans are losing confidence in his Presidency.
One big problem is that Mr. Biden often
doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. Take rising gas prices that are a
growing public concern. Mr. Biden blamed the OPEC cartel for not producing more
oil, but then he said the answer is “ultimately . . . investing in renewable
energy.”
Most cars still run on gasoline, not solar or
wind power. Electric cars remain impractical for most Americans. The way to
reduce gas prices is to produce more oil to increase the supply. Mr. Biden
wouldn’t have to plead with OPEC to produce more if he weren’t working so hard
to limit U.S. oil production.
How about the supply-chain bottlenecks
contributing to shortages and inflation? Mr. Biden blamed Covid and employers
who won’t pay enough to attract workers. But employers are bidding up wages
nearly across the economy and they still can’t fill the more than 10 million
job openings nationwide.
Asked if he’d call in the National Guard to
address the shortage of truckers, Mr. Biden said he would. But the deployment
of the Guard is actually controlled by Governors, as the White House later
clarified.
Mr. Biden’s confusion extended to foreign
policy, which is supposed to be his strength. Regarding Taiwan—a crucial issue
with China—Mr. Biden misstated U.S. policy. Asked “can you vow to protect
Taiwan,” Mr. Biden said “yes.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper must have figured
this was news, because he gave Mr. Biden another chance: “So are you saying
that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if—”
Mr. Biden: “Yes.”
Mr. Cooper: —“China attacked?”
Mr. Biden: “Yes, we have a commitment to do
that.”
The actual U.S. policy toward Taiwan is
“strategic ambiguity” about U.S. intentions. The Taiwan Relations Act commits
the U.S. to help Taiwan defend itself but does not include a NATO-like
commitment to go to war to defend the island democracy. Many people think the
U.S. should make such a commitment explicit so Beijing doesn’t miscalculate and
invade the island. Was Mr. Biden announcing a change in U.S. policy?
Apparently not, because the White House soon
walked back Mr. Biden’s words. Strategic ambiguity lives, or perhaps we should
say strategic confusion in the case of Mr. Biden. You have to wonder what the
hard men in Beijing think of this performance. Does the fast White House
retreat from Mr. Biden’s words mean the U.S. doesn’t intend to defend Taiwan?
What is U.S. policy? Wars have started amid such mixed signals to adversaries.
We take no pleasure in pointing
this out, since the U.S. needs a President who can handle the strains of the
job. Mr. Biden was never Demosthenes, and all Presidents stumble in speech. But
Mr. Biden’s frequent public confusion about the major issues of the day is a
reason for the growing public concern.
