If the last month has made anything clear, it is that President Joe Biden does not have the respect of his staff, from his Cabinet down to the most irrelevant interns.
That is the biggest takeaway from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s unexplained absence, aside from the fact that Austin should not remain in his job. Austin has been absent from his job due to complications from an elective surgery, which we still have sparse details about, that left him hospitalized. Austin was hospitalized on New Year’s Day, but Biden was not told until three days later and was not even told by Austin himself.
What’s more, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks assumed many of Austin’s duties while she was on vacation in Puerto Rico. Again, no one told Biden, the president, that the man in charge of the Pentagon was in the hospital and that the next person in charge was taking on many of his responsibilities while she was in Puerto Rico. This information was all kept from Biden for three days.
It is clear that Austin, Hicks, and any other Defense Department staff members who were aware of this arrangement did not respect Biden enough to inform him of this major development. This wasn’t some staffer going home early with the sniffles. The hospitalization of the defense secretary is something the president should be made aware of immediately, and yet no one even bothered to loop Biden in for three days.
This lack of respect for Biden extends all the way to the lowest levels of his staff. That was made apparent last month, when White House interns wrote an anonymous letter demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, all but accusing Biden of facilitating and excusing genocide and declaring, “We are not the decision makers of today, but we aspire to be the leaders of tomorrow.” Members of Biden’s campaign then issued a similar letter last week.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In other words, Biden’s own interns are using their proximity to him to undermine his stance on an international conflict on behalf of Hamas terrorists. They are shaming him and demanding policy changes of the president as interns. It’s a different scenario than Austin’s unannounced hospital stay, but it reveals the same thing: Biden has no respect from his subordinates.
It is certainly something Biden has earned, given that he doesn’t want to fire Austin and doesn’t appear to have canned any of those entitled interns either. But it is an undeniable and unavoidable reality that he is not respected by members of his own staff, illustrating once again just how ill-equipped Biden is to continue to serve as president.