As we prepare to enter the new year, we’re taking you back to some of The Daily Wire’s best reporting from 2024. This article was originally published on November 20.
President Joe Biden’s one term in the White House is coming to an end, and to celebrate, we’re looking back at some of the worst moments of his presidency.
This administration has racked up a buffet of scandals ranging from massive failures like the Afghanistan withdrawal to a shocking, politicized hurricane response this fall.
Over the past four years, critics have accused Biden of weakening national security, committing federal overreach, and leveraging the federal government to attack his political enemies.
With Biden’s one and only term winding down, here are five of his presidency’s worst moments.
Afghanistan Withdrawal
The Biden administration completed its disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, six months after Biden took office.
The botched operation resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members due to a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which descended into chaos as terrified civilians tried to escape before the Taliban took over the country. Dozens of American citizens were left stranded in the country, and harrowing video of Afghan civilians clinging to a U.S. Air Force plane taking off went viral on social media.
The administration was fiercely criticized on both sides of the aisle for the deadly pullout and the damage it did to America’s standing on the world stage.
Vaccine Mandate Backlash
Just a month after the Afghanistan debacle, Biden announced a new vaccine mandate that applied to larger private companies and would affect as many as 100 million Americans.
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” Biden said at the time of Americans who refused to get the vaccine.
This rule prompted severe backlash. Several companies, including The Daily Wire, sued over the mandate, and the Supreme Court ultimately blocked it four months later in January 2022.
Hunter Biden And Classified Documents
In January of last year, news broke that classified documents were discovered at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. Some of the documents were being stored in a garage along with Biden’s Corvette.
“My Corvette is in a locked garage. It’s not like it’s sitting out in the street,” Biden said at the time.
The discovery sparked accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans who pointed out that the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Florida, over the same issue — classified documents stored there.
Critics also wondered whether Hunter Biden, the president’s scandal-ridden son, had access to the classified documents. Hunter has been accused of influence-peddling in foreign countries using his father’s name.
Debate With Trump
Biden’s catastrophic presidential debate with Trump on June 27 effectively ended his half-century political career.
During the debate, Biden frequently lost his train of thought, spoke nonsensical sentences, and stammered, seeming to confirm the narrative that he was in mental decline and too old for a second term.
Following the debate, Democrats panicked and launched a pressure campaign led by Nancy Pelosi to force Biden out of the race, ultimately replacing him with Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the election earlier this month.
FEMA Hurricane Scandal
The latest scandal to plague the Biden administration is The Daily Wire’s bombshell report showing that a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supervisor told workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” in Florida after Hurricane Milton.
Whistleblowers said at least 20 homes with Trump flags or signs were skipped. The supervisor has since been fired.
This week, lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee grilled FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell on the incident.
The administration has made plenty of other moves that were widely criticized, including its response to both the Maui wildfires and the East Palestine train derailment.
The infamous FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 drew accusations that Biden was using the Justice Department to try to crush his political rival.
Biden has also suffered embarrassments in Congress. His signature legislation, the Build Back Better plan, collapsed when Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV), for years the most moderate Democrat in the Senate, withdrew his support and tanked the bill.
Out-of-control spending and spiking inflation, as well as the southern border crisis, were the two issues the Biden administration could not shake this presidential election cycle.
Biden approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus bill, the American Rescue Plan Act, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act, which, despite its name, authorized hundreds of billions of dollars more in federal spending. Meanwhile, more than 12 million migrants have crossed into the U.S. illegally under the Biden administration.
