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After a lifetime of service, Joe Biden’s post-presidential career has fallen off a cliff.
The Biblical verse often quoted as “Pride comes before a fall” is a shortened version of Proverbs 16:18, which reads, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Well, Biden, 82, is undoubtedly a very proud man. Perhaps too proud. He has a haughty spirit. And he’s been destroyed.
The destruction wrought on him by Donald Trump is unparalleled in presidential history. Thomas Jefferson was so upset that John Adams didn’t attend his inauguration that he didn’t speak to him for a decade. Outgoing POTUS Andrew Johnson boycotted Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration because the incoming POTUS refused to share a carriage. But the 47th president has blamed the 46th for everything from the price of eggs to taking America to the brink of World War III.
For his part, Biden maintains that he could have won in 2024. He was the one who had beaten Trump and could do it again. But few outside his fiercely protective inner circle believe it.
It is not just Biden’s pride that has been hurt; it’s also his pocket. The Swamp has learned that a series of paid speaking engagements were being lined up for the departing president before last November’s election, with fees of up to $300,000 a time. That was already $100,000 less per engagement than Barack Obama received after leaving office in 2017.
All but five speaking gigs were canceled as Trump began his anti-Biden retribution tour. And one of those was unpaid. Nobody wants to upset the vengeful new president by hosting the man he replaced, especially not colleges that were already in his crosshairs.
His first major speaking gig was in Chicago in April, when he addressed the bipartisan Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled. He made a presentation to the National High School Model United Nations a month earlier. He also spoke at the National Bar Association Gala and the Society of Human Resource Management Convention as the keynote speaker in July. There is no public record of whether these speeches were paid events. A speech to the Harvard Institute of Politics was unpaid, according to the college.
After earning $400,000 a year as vice president to Obama, Biden’s earnings shot up to more than $15 million in the subsequent two years. His financial disclosures and tax returns showed that between January 2018 and May 2019, he made 47 paid speaking engagements. His fees averaged about $100,000 per event.
Now he’s being left with a presidential pension of $250,600 a year (the equivalent of a Cabinet Secretary’s pay), topped up with his $166,374 Congressional retirement as well as paid office space, printing supplies, desks, health benefits, and travel costs of up to $1 million a year. Oh, and he’ll get a free funeral with all the frills.
Biden has yet to move his presidential library out of a closet in the National Archives and Records Administration. And it’s fast looking like he scored big time with a $10 million advance for his memoir, much of which will undoubtedly be written by someone whose name is not Joe Biden.
Maybe he should take up painting like George W. Bush and his son, Hunter. We hear that’s an easy way to make a fast buck. Biden spent more than half of his life serving his country, and he is now fighting an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It must be painful for him to see how Trump is cleaning up and wondering if he and Jill missed their chance to peddle meme coins.
But it will hurt even more that nobody wants to listen to him anymore. Trump has made sure of that.
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The post Biden Speaking Tour Called Off Over Fears of Angering Trump appeared first on The Daily Beast.
