Friday night, President Joe Biden sat for an extended interview with ABC Washington correspondent and former Clinton White House muppet George Stephanopoulos. This interview was the first Biden has conducted since his humiliating performance in Thursday's debate with former president Donald Trump. It was also the first interview Biden gave in 2024 and only the 23rd interview Biden gave during his presidency—the last was in November. It came as a critical time for Biden as his dementia has become so pronounced that even the media and other Democrats have begun to notice. 

Nothing in the interview did anything to tamp down rumors and news stories about his general unfitness to serve now, much less run for another full term. If anything, any doubt you may have had about the stories was quickly dispelled.

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What Is at Stake for Joe Biden Today?

There was some scary stuff in the interview. This is a sample captured by my colleague Bonchie (see WATCH: Joe Biden's Big Interview With George Stephanopoulos Is Out, and It's an Absolute).

STEPHANOPOULOS: Elections are about the future, not the past. They are about tomorrow, not yesterday, and the question on so many people's minds right now is, "Can you serve effectively for the next four years?" 

BIDEN: George, I'm the guy that put NATO together, the future, no one thought I could expand it. I'm the guy who shut Putin down. No one thought it could happen. I'm the guy who put together a South Pacific initiative with (inaudible). I'm the guy that got 50 nations, not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well, to help Ukraine. I'm the guy that got Japanese to expand their budget, so I mean, me, for example, when I'm decided, we used to have 40 percent computer chipping, we invented the chip, that little chip, the computer chip. 

For the record, I'd like to remind everyone that far from being the guy who "shut Putin down," Joe Biden was the guy who played a weaker and more timorous Neville Chamberlain in Putin's invasion of Ukraine. From my post titled Kyiv Is 'Stunned' That Biden Appears to Greenlight 'Minor Incursion' Into Ukraine:

Joe Biden gave a press conference on Wednesday during which he covered a lot of topics including their false ‘voting rights’ push and the border.

But one of the things that he said that raised a lot of eyebrows was when he was asked about what would cause a reaction of powerful sanctions. Biden suggested that a “minor incursion” by Russia wouldn’t prompt that kind of response.

“In the Pacific basin I’m checkmating China now”

China has the largest Navy and largest Coast Guard and one of the largest Merchant Marines in the world but we have checkmated them? 🤦‍♂️pic.twitter.com/WOceKyEDjZ

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) July 6, 2024

STEPHANOPOULOS: And if you stay in, and Trump is elected and everything you’re warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?

BIDEN: I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about. Look, George. Think of it this way. You’ve heard me say this before. I think the United States and the world is at an inflection point when the things that happen in the next several years are going to determine what the next six, seven decades are going to be like.

And who’s going to be able to hold NATO together like me? Who’s going to be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we’re — we’re at least checkmating China now? Who’s going to — who’s going to do that? Who has that reach? Who has — who knows all these pe—? We’re going to have, I guess a good way to judge me, is you’re going to have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.

My personal belief is that China will not allow Biden to make any moves in the Pacific that aren't pre-approved by China. Given Hunter's frequent visits to China, there is an infinite amount of compromising material on him. Given Hunter's predilection for drugs and women, there is no telling how many unacknowledged grandchildren Biden has in China, but you can bet the Chinese intelligence services can provide proof of conception...assuming they had reached puberty.

So, let's look at how well the "checkmating" is going.

Most concerning is that claiming “checkmate” in the Pacific overlooks the fact that China has the largest Navy, largest Coast Guard, largest Naval Militia, and largest shipbuilders in the world. It also has the world’s largest fleets of military controlled merchant ships and owns ports globally.

A small and diminishing minority of naval experts still believe the United States has the ability to win a war in the Pacific against China, but no serious naval expert believes it would be an easy fight. Throughout the administration, gCaptain has interviewed dozens of admirals and naval security experts, and never once have I heard the word “checkmate.”

Not only is our ally, the Philippines, having its ships mauled by the Chinese and getting pushed out of territory that international treaties recognize as belonging to the Philippines, but we are also getting orders from Beijing about the deployment of U.S. forces on Philippine territory.

At issue was the Typhon missile system, which would be critical in any conflict with China or anyone else in the Pacific.

The US Army plans to deploy its new Mid-Range Capability (MRC) long-range launcher in the Indo-Pacific next year, according to a four-star general.

Also known as Typhon, the service designed the land-based system to launch Raytheon’s existing SM-6 missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit targets between the Precision Strike Missile’s (PrSM’s) planned 500-kilometer range and the 2,776-kilometer reach of the future Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW).

“We have tested [Typhon] and we have a battery, or two of them today,” US Army Pacific commander Gen. Charles Flynn told reporters at the Halifax International Security Forum today. 

“In ‘24, we intend to deploy that system in the region,” he added. “I’m not going to say where and when, but I will just say that we will deploy them in the region.”

Well, China says "no," Hoss, and they are calling the shots with Joey SoftServe in the White House.

A US mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines for annual joint military exercises -- to the annoyance of China -- will be pulled out of the country, a Philippine Army spokesman said Thursday.

The US Army said in April it had deployed the Mid-Range Capability missile system which can fire the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile in the northern Philippines.

...

The presence of the mid-range missile system on Philippine soil had angered Beijing. 

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun warned in June there were "limits" to Beijing's restraint on the South China Sea and over the deployment of ballistic missiles in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dong's remarks at a security forum in Singapore were a clear reference to the Philippines and the United States, which have been boosting defence ties in the face of China's growing military might and influence.

The deployment of "medium-range ballistic missiles" was "severely damaging regional security and stability", Dong said.

"Acting in this way will ultimately burn oneself."

The climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis was summed up in Secretary of State Dean Rusk's quip, "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked." In this case, we didn't get eyeball to eyeball because Joe Biden did a kowtow based on a glare.

Even though the deployment of this missile system was intended to be "temporary," temporary was never defined. Pulling the missile out as China is grousing about it is a bad look as China is doing nothing to "reduce tensions" in the South China Sea because it looks, smells, and tastes like surrender.

Just as Biden's half-hearted efforts to roll back Russian aggression in Ukraine haven't gone unnoticed by our allies and adversaries, neither has Biden's reluctance to confront Chinese adventurism and provocations in the Pacific. Instead of standing firm, Biden has let China dictate to the US what kind of military equipment we can station on the territory of a willing ally.