OPINION:
President Biden’s pitch to win election and now to win reelection is that he is a man of compassion.
From letting millions of migrants into the country without vetting to canceling billions of dollars of student loan debts, Mr. Biden’s policies have been predicated on the notion that he is compassionate and cares about the so-called little people.
But behind the scenes, it’s a different story.
For almost a year, Mr. Biden took no action to protect his Secret Service agents from vicious bites by his German Shepherd Commander. Now, with a Freedom of Information Act disclosure, we know that Mr. Biden’s Secret Service agents endured 24 dog-biting incidents involving Commander, including one that led to an agent receiving six stitches to his arm. A uniformed Secret Service officer bitten by Commander in the fall of 2022 needed treatment at a hospital.
If Mr. Biden were an ordinary citizen, animal control would have been called in after the first incident and his dog taken away. But because of the president’s arrogance and stunning lack of compassion, his agents had to operate in an atmosphere of fear, never knowing when they maybe attacked.
Mr. Biden’s hand-picked Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, should have stepped in immediately and told the president that her agency could not protect if agents were constantly attacked. But failing that, the shocking episode tells us everything we need to know about Mr. Biden’s true character.
In fact, going back to when Mr. Biden was vice president, his treatment of his Secret Service detail spotlights the difference between the image he seeks to project and the reality. As revealed in my book “The First Family Detail,” almost every week, Mr. Biden as vice president, would decide on the spur of the moment to return to his Wilmington home and stay there for a few days, never giving agents a chance to plan their personal schedules. As a result, they had no social lives.
Mr. Biden also had a habit of swimming nude at the pools at his home and the Naval Observatory. Female agents were offended that regularly, they had to watch Mr. Biden swim naked. As with the dog-biting incidents, if Mr. Biden were an ordinary citizen and exposed himself to women, he would have been arrested.
Yet when it comes to disregarding the welfare of his fellow citizens, nothing compares with Mr. Biden’s practice when he was vice president of insisting to his agents that they keep the military aide with the nuclear football at least a mile behind his motorcade when he was touring in Delaware.
The nuclear football is a leather-covered titanium business case that weighs 40 pounds. Secured with a cipher lock, it contains a variety of secure phone capabilities and written options for launching nuclear strikes that the president may authorize.
In the event of a devastating threatened attack on the U.S., the president—or vice president as his backup—would confirm his identity to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon over a secure phone in the nuclear football by reading codes from the Sealed Authenticator System card that he is supposed to carry with him at all times.
Military leaders and White House national security advisers would then brief the president or vice president on the nature of the threat and options for retaliating. He would then choose a retaliatory option, and his command would be returned to him. Once he confirms, the command center would use the military’s launch authorization codes to release nuclear missiles.
Every second counts. By the time the command center would establish communication with the president or vice president through the nuclear football, nuclear missiles from a submarine could have already wiped out New York City.
But instead of the usual retinue of at least 15 vehicles preceded by a police escort in his motorcade, whenever he returned home to Delaware, Mr. Biden wanted a Secret Service motorcade of just two—the limousine or Suburban he rode in, plus a single follow-up Suburban behind him with agents. Yet, in the event of an attack by Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran, the U.S. would have been annihilated.
If President Barack Obama had been taken out, even with no traffic, there would not have been time for the military aide to catch up with Mr. Biden to allow him to launch a counterstrike using the nuclear football.
In addition to putting the country at risk when he was in Delaware, Mr. Biden insisted on having only two Secret Service vehicles near him when he vacationed in places such as the Hamptons, instructing the military aide with the nuclear football to remain at a hotel.
Mr. Biden did not want the military aide near him because of pure narcissism: According to agents I interviewed, Mr. Biden wanted to project a “regular Joe” image. A long motorcade would conflict with that image.
As with his refusal for almost a year to banish his vicious dog by putting the country at risk, Mr. Biden revealed his true character and calamitous lack of compassion for the American people.
• Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents.”
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