From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday May twenty twenty five. One of Australia's most experienced Indigenous leaders says people who self identify as Aboriginal are undermining First Nations leaders who work with established land councils. Roy RC, a Morajuri man from New South Wales, says some activists are determined to block resources and development projects
and are willing to displace genuine elders. High end family cars could get cheaper as part of the Albanese government's efforts to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union, the government is examining lowering the luxury car tax, which kicks in on new cars worth over about eighty thousand dollars and raises more than a billion dollars a year. Those stories alive now at the Australian dot com dot au.
Joe Biden has advanced prostate cancer, a diagnosis only revealed after he unsuccessfully sought another four years as US president. As revelations pour out about Biden's rapid cognitive decline while in office, We're joined today by Foreign editor Greg Sheridan, to ask, why are we only hearing the truth now? Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor and we're talking
today about Joe Biden's diagnosis of cancer. Of Course, as is always the case in American politics, what seems at first like a fairly simple story an old man is diagnosed with cancer has sprouted all sorts of theories, from conspiracies to blame shifting.
I'm surprised that the public wasn't notified a long time ago. I think that if you take a look, it's the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine, there was nothing wrong with him. Somebody is not telling the facts. That's a big problem.
Greg, what was your reaction when you heard that Joe Biden had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Well, of course, at the personal level, you would wish mister Biden, well, you know, he's been a distinguished servant of his nation. However, the American president is a human being who has to be medically fit to serve, and we're seeing now a whole plethora of books revealing the fact that Biden was plainly unfit to serve. I mean that was obvious to everyone who saw his debate with Donald Trump. He was unfit across a whole range of
physical capabilities. There are stories that his doctors told him his crippling arthritis of the spine would mean he'd spend his second term in a wheelchair. He refused to take any kind of cognitive test, but his cognitive decline was obvious. There were stories he wouldn't have a cabinet meeting for twelve months because he couldn't bear to face the cabinet secretaries.
And of course the special prosecutor found that you couldn't prosecute him for mishandling government documents, which he did after he was vice president, because he would present in the court as an old man with a very feeble memory. So now you have an advanced cancer diagnosis. On its face, it looks as though this couldn't have just developed five minutes ago, that there must have been some knowledge about
it earlier than the election. And by insisting on remaining the candidate, he destroyed the Democrats chances in the presidential election that was held last November.
Presidents have regular physical examinations and they always come out with hilariously glowing reports. Greg, you know, Donald Trump is the fittest seventy eight year old man in the world,
apparently according to his doctors. But Joe Biden, as you say, wouldn't have a cognitive test, and his pre secretary at the time said that every day was a cognitive test when you are the president of the United States, looking back and knowing that it is difficult to tell when you are close to someone whether what you're seeing is
just aging or whether it might actually be dementia. How critical do you think we can be of the Biden team and of the Democrats in general, for failing to see the signs of advancing decline.
Claire, I think it's actually much worse than that. I think they were absolutely aware of the decline but wanted to, as it were, fraudulently I don't mean that in the legal sense, but in a moral and political sense, fraudulently hang on to the presidency and all the perks and patronage that go with it. We've had this before in American politics, you know. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, and really the White House was run by his wife and his chief of staff for a long time, and his
condition was kept from the public. Franklin Roosevelt's physical condition was kept from the public for a long time, but he certainly was mentally acute and well and capable of being president. Even in distant Australia, it was abundantly obvious that the man was just not fit to be president, even the articles that I wrote, because they bore on orcus. I had a phone call from a friend in the Biden administration saying, don't you dare write those articles. The
president is fit well. Now, that just shows how paranoid they were about this. Now, Donald Trump looks extremely unhealthy, so overweight, and so forth, But no one could doubt that Donald Trump is on top of the job. I mean, he may be doing a terrible job, but he's certainly
on top of the job. He knows who he is, where he is, what he's doing, and can reason things and so forth, Whereas it was abundantly obvious that Biden was incapable of the job, I think for probably twelve or eighteen months before the election.
It's a lot to expect that any of us in our ninth decade would be capable of the kind of
high level decision making that's required of a president. But there's a real difficulty in letting go of something that's been your lifelong dream, isn't there An example of that is Ruth Bade Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who stayed in the job until her death at the age of eighty seven, despite her supporters begging her to step down so that ben President Barack Obama could appoint another liberal judge. Is it understandable that Biden himself, as a human being didn't want to let go.
It's understandable, but it's not forgivable. There are some jobs where you're meant to just carry on until you die. Basically, in particular the papacy. Benedict was the big exception, the first pope in hundreds and hundreds of years to actually resign because he felt he was too frail. A lot of people in their eighties, even before modern medicine, have been perfectly good prime minister's national leaders doctor mahatire In, Conrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill. There have been a lot of
effective national leaders in their eighties. But sure, you can understand Biden's insane ambition. Almost anybody who becomes president or who runs for president is defined by insane ambition and a kind of crazy narcissism. You know, Biden has not been a politician who has stood steadfastly for any particular set of policies. Biden, many decades ago, was against bussing
to end desegregation, and he cooperated closely with segregationists. And he was an orthodox handy abortion Catholic until he became a pro abortion Catholic, and so on. He is the very definition of the machine politician. His life has certainly had tragedy in it, the death of his first wife and daughter many years ago in a car accident, the death of his son from brain cancer, and his whole
existence has been towards political office. He's a very young senator, a very old president, but none of that really counts for a hill of beans. What he did was to deprive the American people of a proper choice for the presidency. If he had said, two years into his term, guess what, I'm thrilled to be your president for one term, but it's plain to me that I wouldn't be fit for a second term. So I'm going to have this fantastic first term, and I'm going to open the doors wide
open for my successor. On the Democratic side, the Democrats would have had a proper primary process. They had some terrific candidates on offer, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro. They could have had a proper primary, worked out the best candidate, and they would have been in a good possession to
confront Donald Trump. Instead of which by indulging himself in this self indulgent fantasy that he could hang on, Biden was brutally exposed in that presidential bait that he had with the Trump When I'm in to.
Fix the taxis, for example, we had one thousand billionaires in America, I mean billionaires in America. If they just paid twenty four twenty five percent, either one of those numbers in need raised five hundred million dollars, billion dollars.
It was a humiliating, desperate and terrible event. It was almost painful to watch it. You felt sick and sorry for the guy. But this is no way for anybody to feel about an American president that even then Biden wouldn't give UPI hung on and hang on and hang on until virtually all the Democratic congressional leadership told him
he had to leave, and then he left. Kamala Harris with a very short period of time no chance for a proper Democratic primary and a really dysfunctional American election, and the American people were deprived of a proper choice. So I had to kind of even here in Australia to beat up on the guy when he's just had a terr diagnosis of cancer. You feel very sorry for him at the personal level. But this was a story of hubris, vanity and ego quite as bad as anything which Donald Trump has shown us.
Coming up. Why do the Democrats keep getting it wrong? And what happens at the next election? Greg? Why do the Democrats keep getting it so wrong? If Biden was the wrong choice to begin with, and if they looked at him more clearly when he first stood for the presidency, it would have been obvious that he was not going to last the eight years that they would have hoped. They then chose the wrong candidate in Kamala Harris. They had previously chosen the wrong candidate in Hillary Clinton.
You could put half of Trump' supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables right, the racist, sexies, homophobic x.
Do you have any hope that the Democrats might actually put up someone next time around who will make it a proper contest.
Yeah, Claire, that's a fascinating question, really complex one. So I think Hillary Clinton was quite a good candidate. Remember that she won the popular vote by three million against Trump and just lost by a sliver a couple of those battleground stage which meant that she lost the electoral College. And until she got in the ring with Trump, she
was the most admired woman in America. Trump, even if people don't like him, he has a tremendous distractive capacity, and he beats up on someone and they bear a lot of scars at the end of that process. Then the primary process which selected Biden to beat Trump was itself very flaw Do you remember that Pete Bootajige won the first primary and the Democrats miscounted the votes or something,
and Bootajidge didn't get that momentum. Then the primary process was interrupted by COVID, and the establishment became very worried that Bernie Sanders was going to win the primary.
Thank you, no, hamsure, and let me say tonight that this victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.
So they threw all their weight behind Biden. Now, remember Biden had failed dismally at two previous presidential attempts. But then Biden was successful against Trump, and he won the popular vote I think by eight million. If at that time he had committed to one term, then the Democrats would have had a good primary season and would have chosen their best candidate. I think they probably would have chosen Gretchen Whitmer, and she would have been a much
stronger candidate than Kamala Harris was. But Kamala Harris I think she was a poor candidate, but she also came close. She only lost to Trump by about I think one percent or maybe one and a half percent in the popular vote, and she lost all seven swing states, but by quite narrow margin, certainly one hundred and fifty thousand votes in the right states, and she would have been president. Now, the Democrats next time will have a proper contested primary.
They'll have strong candidates from the left, maybe from the so called squad I think Bernie Sanders is now too old. They'll have strong candidates from the center, state governors like Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom in California, and the Republicans will also have a primary process, probably dominated by Trump but Trump picked candidates when he's not on
the ballot himself. Don't have a history of doing that. Well. Oh, I think the next presidential election, it's a long way away, but it's absolutely wide open. Trump is doing poorly in the polls at the moment, so he's likely to lose the House of Representatives next November. The American system is full of checks and balances and normally works things out. I think the Biden episode in particular was a very rare example of a president who became manifestly unfit while
in office. Barack Obahama and George W. Bush were both as fit as fleas, and Trump seems to have an unbelievable life force. Gosh, I've never known anyone with his body shape and his sort of agitated emotional intensity and such a high stress job who just seems to thrive on it. Big Max, no sleep, tweeting at three.
Am, rening bid.
Yeah, all of that, getting mad with everybody all the time. It seems to keep him alive. So, you know, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Greg Sheridan is The Australian's foreign editor. You can read Greg's reporting on everything from Ukraine to Taiwan anytime at the Australian dot com dot au