Washington Post: “Those around Biden describe a post-presidency constrained by illness with his days increasingly organized around treatment, family and efforts to shape his legacy.”

”Unlike some recent predecessors, Biden has maintained a limited public schedule, has yet to build a sprawling philanthropic or policy operation and has struggled to raise money for a presidential library, leaving him with fewer avenues to influence how his presidency is remembered.”

“That frailty is likely to become harder to keep private this fall, when Biden begins promoting a memoir scheduled for publication on Nov. 17, two weeks after the midterm elections. The timing has unsettled some friends and former advisers, who worry not only about Biden’s well-being, but also about how much his visible health struggle could revive the bitter arguments of 2024 just as Democrats are trying to make the election a referendum on President Donald Trump.”

Seth Masket: “It is a longstanding tradition among those covering politics that you’re not supposed to appear biased toward a candidate or incumbent. Particularly with presidential candidates, you’re supposed to provide negative coverage…”

“But it also means that when there’s not enough obvious things to criticize, political journalists will try to find some. That is, they have a negative coverage bucket to fill. Now, Trump makes it easy on them, involving himself in countless scandals, lawsuits, and criminal investigations and making multiple statements throughout each day that defy political norms, offend large portions of the country, and threaten the rule of law…”

“But there’s something of a curse if you’re successful at avoiding scandal. Biden’s was hardly an error-free administration, but he did the basic parts of governing well and without major scandals… And for political reporters, that makes filling the negative coverage bucket more challenging. So they ended up focusing on a small number of things that seemed problematic. For Biden, that was a) the pullout from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers; and b) being old.”

Julia Azari: “The simplest difference is that the Democratic coalition is younger on balance – Democratic presidential candidates have won with younger voters (usually defined as 18-29) since 2004, and the party has an edge with this group.”

“Data bear out the stereotypes: the Republicans do better with older voters, even if this age gap didn’t play out exactly as expected in the 2024 election. Biden’s age was one more thing placing him at odds with the diverse party he was trying to lead, and Democrats seem to have had a uncomfortable relationship with this state of affairs. Watching Biden show signs of age did not help.”

“Former President Joe Biden is in an uphill battle to try to stop the Justice Department from sharing recordings it collected of him speaking to his ghostwriter in 2016 and 2017, during which his speech and memory faltered,” CNN reports.

“Court decisions on Friday and into next month are poised to revive questions over Biden’s mental acuity during his presidency — and even in the years before.”

“A federal judge on Friday rejected former President Biden’s attempt to block the Trump administration from releasing to a conservative group the recordings that Biden made with a ghostwriter,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

ABC News: Judge says DOJ can provide Biden conversations with ghostwriter to Heritage Foundation.

“Hunter Biden has challenged Donald Trump Jr. to a cage fight in an unhinged social media rant attacking the UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn,” the New York Post reports.

Helen Lewis: “How much grace should we extend to people who screw up—like, really screw up? After many years as an addict and a general failson, Hunter Biden’s history includes felony gun convictions, tax evasion, smoking crack, and smoking Parmesan cheese that he thought was crack. But in the past few weeks, the son of the former president has launched a new career as—a sober counselor? A life coach?”

“Since reviving his dormant X account on May 19, the younger Biden has fully embraced a persona he soft-launched last year, when the Gen Z influencer Andrew Callaghan interviewed him about his past drug addiction. His strategy is not to deny his past transgressions, but to flagellate himself so thoroughly for them that no one else can land a hit.”

“I don’t want to reopen the old wounds either. I mean, the debate was one chapter of 35 chapters… And could you imagine if I left that out? How I’d be criticized? Of course I had to include it. But do I want to relive it again and again and again? No. And I think the Democrats are going to do great in the midterms, and we’ll go on and move past this time in history.”

— Jill Biden, quoted by Time, on the Democratic backlash to her memoir.

“It’s not my call of course but would suggest a Sunday midnight Hawaii time informal deadline for all Biden discourse.”

— Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), on X.

New York Times: “A year and a half has passed since that freezing cold day in Washington when Joe and Jill Biden climbed into a helicopter outside the front steps of the Capitol as Donald and Melania Trump and JD and Usha Vance stood together and waved goodbye. Their legacy and standing within their party blown to smithereens, the Biden clan stayed pretty quiet until now.”

“The publication of Jill Biden’s book this week and her subsequent publicity tour reopened deep wounds in the party as she presented her Rashomon version of how her husband’s presidency came to its painful end. The discourse turned messy as former Biden staff members contradicted her online and in media reports and she hit back.”

“Former First Lady Jill Biden was confident her husband could serve another four years as president, when he was running for reelection. But on Tuesday morning, she admitted that, based on what she knows now, he couldn’t have,” The Wrap reports. 

Said Biden: “Well, not from what I know now. I mean, my god, who knew? It was so shocking to get a cancer diagnosis. I mean, we had — you know, here I was, I’m looking through travel magazines like ‘Oh, where are we gonna go, what are we gonna do?’ And then we get this cancer diagnosis, and I think ‘What am I doing?!’ Like, our whole life is changed now.”

“Had he grown too old for the job and I hadn’t noticed? I didn’t think so, but could I be objective enough to be sure?”

— Jill Biden, quoted in a Wall Street Journal review of her new book, View from the East Wing.