President Biden must show his fitness to serve through more open governance

Good afternoon from Washington, where the capitol of the United States is dressed up and rehearsing to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, 248 years ago tomorrow.

Alex Howard here, with another civic text. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far, especially to new members and the folk who have chipped in to support this work. You can always find me at alex@governing.digital with your questions, concerns, or other feedback.

Today, I am feeling profoundly troubled about the state of our union, given the historic sweep of the past week in American history. To be honest, I’ve been in shock since Monday morning, sleeping poorly ever since.

The fact the Supreme Court didn’t simply affirm the lower court’s ruling & dismiss Trump’s absurd claims of absolute immunity was appalling, given trial delays — but this is calamitous for democracy writ large.

Like the Dred Scott case or Plessy v. Ferguson, I expect “Trump vs U.S.” will be infamous in the years to come. The ruling fundamentally changing the character of our union by judicial fiat, introducing immunity for a president that is not found in Article II of the Constitution.

Even if there had not been decades of accumulating power gathered within an imperial presidency in the world's nuclear hyperpower, this ruling threatens to enable the very tyranny that the founding fathers of our nation threw off two and half centuries ago when they created a nation in which no man was above the law.

While the truth is self-evident that any nation in which people are enslaved and women cannot vote was not a polity in which equal justice before the law existed, the progress we have made since towards building vibrant, pluralistic democracy in which no human was above the law showed change was possible. On July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that a president is above the law, despite the plain words of a Constitution that provides for them to be impeached and removed for high crimes and misdemeanors or disqualified if they provide aid or comfort to those who engage in insurrection. Therefore, I dissent.

It took the 13th and 14th Amendment to undo the damage that past Courts caused to our union. I fear a similar correction will be required here, but the high barriers to ratifying new amendments posed under our current Constitution will prevent the United States from healing this rift for years to come. As a result, the future of the American experiment in democracy has been thrown into grave doubt if a future president rules as a tyrant instead of a public servant.

On Truth, Transparency, and finding the American Way

My sense of dire portent has, frankly, been heightened by shaken trust in the fitness of the current president to serve. That is, unfortunately, the subject of today's essay.

Since last Thursday night, President Biden has faced a crisis of public confidence after a historically poor debate performance.

This White House hasn't been able to ignore it, nor have officials been able to dismiss what we all saw, given the risks that shaken trust in a president's health or fitness to serve pose to public health, safety, and security.

As has been true in every White House faced with a crisis in confidence, the boring but necessary response to shaken public trust is government transparency, accountability, and participation over time.

This week’s light schedule and a canceled Cabinet meeting today strongly suggest that President Biden has either received more poor counsel from the White House advisors who have kept him in a protective bubble since he took office – or that he's declined to take action after an inflection point in his presidency and in our nation's history.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced tough questions about the president's health and fitness yesterday, and has just fielded more of the same as I write.

That scrutiny is appropriate. People getting angry at the press for doing their jobs are misdirecting their animus. President Biden can no longer afford to approach his presidency in the same way as he has for three years and be successful as a leader – domestically, or abroad.

The buck stops with the president. His public statement on the Supreme Court's immunity on Monday was clear, forceful, and necessary – and yet insufficient to the moment.

He took no questions then, nor after yesterday's briefing on extreme weather in DC after delivering brief remarks. The president is self-evidently not incapacitated – but his administration is also failing to seize the moment in the ways an escalating crisis in American democracy requires.

There's evidence that the president understands the danger here: the New York Times reported today that President Biden told "a key ally" that "he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week."

That assessment is correct, but the president's theory of the case looks flawed. He didn't just "fall asleep" at the debate, in one bad night for the ages. The Wall Street Journal reports that the president has been showing signs of slipping at meetings for months, which foreign diplomats have noticed.

Yesterday, the Times reported that lapses have become more common in 2024, citing "current and former officials and others who encountered him behind closed doors noticed that he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations."

An undisclosed shift in a president's health is not a new story, though it is a news story. Throughout U.S. history, presidents have deceived the American people about poor health, from illness to incapacity, with air cover from their press secretaries and surrogate. Presidential physicians have played a key role in deceiving officials, the press, and the public about the poor health of an ailing president, even when disabling conditions or a stroke had left someone unfit to serve.

President Cleveland hid cancer. Presidents Harding, Franklin D. Rooselvelt, & Eisenhower hid heart disease. President John F. Kennedy hid Addison's disease. Wilson had a massive stroke, & hid it for 17 months.

Former President Trump and his White House officials misled the American people about how sick the president was from Covid-19 in 2020.

Secrecy around health issues is the norm, in other words, not an aberration.

By contrast, this White House was both more transparent and more honest about President Biden's case of COVID and his treatment thereafter — though not about the infection source nor contact tracing around him.

Jean-Pierre's repeated claims that the White House has been transparent, however, aren't exactly grounded in a sterling record. An early assessment of this administration's record on open government reflects a default to opacity, not openness. (wh.gov/open remains a 404.)

Being honest about fatigue is a start, as was the oldest President in our history acknowledging that he's lost a literal and figurative step at 81. That's self-evidently insufficient to restore public trust.

The only way forward is to show presidential fitness for office, not for surrogates and political allies to tell Americans. Concretely, that will mean an unprecedented level of radical transparency for this presidency:

1) Holding more formal press conferences, paired with joint appearances with Cabinet secretaries that establish the president's command of policy and enable open discussions of administration's record. As president, Biden has held historically few formal press conferences and town halls. That's got to change.

2) Hosting weekly hybrid town halls, with questions that Americans can vote up or down ahead of time.

3) Sitting for extended interviews with independent journalists, including correspondents from the print and wire news outlets the president has eschewed to date.

Yesterday, ProPublica published an unedited video of Harwood’s 21-minute interview with President Biden from September 2023. That interview is a model for the sustained, substantive, conversation the president will need to seek out and have with independent journalists each week to mitigate legitimate concerns of Americans have about his age and fitness to serve after the debate.

As ProPublica acknowledged, however, the unedited video "will not settle the ongoing arguments about the president’s acuity today."

Per Reuters, the president his aides are also now considering holding a town hall in July. He plans to sit down for more interviews with journalists, including one with George Stephanopoulos this Friday. The White House Press Secretary said President Biden will hold a formal solo press conference at the NATO Summit.

That’s all moving in the right direction, but none of it is radical.

It is not an “all of the above” communications strategy designed for fractured media ecosystems of the 21st century or optimized for advanced truth decay of this moment that will reset the relationship with the American people and demonstrate the power of our example to the entire world. It is not a playbook for fighting authoritarianism or the storms of propaganda, election interference, and worse that loom this fall.

This White House needs to be bolder, now. Reboot FDR's fireside chats, again. Set the bar higher for future presidencies through the "power of our example."

Every President of the United States should both sit down for interviews with journalists from wire and print outlets, AND take open questions from press who cover the White House in a *weekly* cadence.

Every President of the United States should hold in-person town halls with Americans around the nation, AND hold joint press conferences with each Cabinet secretary. Report out to the American people about how our tax dollars have been spent, & to what effect.

Every President of the United States should host Congressional leaders & world leaders for open discussions about foreign policy, AND “go direct” with radio, TV, text messages, and social media. Use digital channels to solicit questions & petitions for redress of grievances that we the people want our elected leaders to answer and act upon.

There will be risks involved in all of that, but the White House National Security Council has to factor in the risks of not restoring public trust in the governance of the United States – and the information our agencies provide – should a natural disaster, pandemic, financial meltdown, or regional war break out in 2024, or constitutional crisis loom in 2025.

If President Biden is unwilling or unable to govern in the open, he should pass the baton to the Vice President and lift up the next generation of American leadership.

History judges us all.

As always, thank you for reading.

If you're in the USA, may you and yours have a safe and restful Independence Day.