James Carville says President Joe Biden is the “most tragic” political figure of his lifetime, not because of his controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden, but because Carville thinks Biden’s delayed exit from the race gave Democrats little chance to win the presidential election 2024 to win .
“I actually feel for Biden, and he knows he messed up,” Carville said in a video for Politicon on Thursday. “He wasn’t crooked, he didn’t have bad policies, he’s the most tolerant, loving, caring, unbiased person you could imagine, and this is what he’s facing.”
Biden promised to run for re-election and not get involved in his son’s felony tax and gun charges, but he changed course on both issues; he quit the race in July and pardoned his son on Sunday for all crimes he allegedly committed between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2024.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who took Biden’s place as the Democratic presidential candidate, ultimately lost the election to her Republican opponent, newly elected President Donald Trump. Carville argues that Biden’s initial hesitation and the Democrats’ subsequent electoral loss turned an otherwise admirable run into a failure.
“The most tragic figure in American politics in my lifetime is President Biden,” Carville declared.
James Carville said Joe Biden’s tarnished legacy is “damn self-inflicted.” Left: Raul E. Diego/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images; Right: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
When Carville addressed Biden’s reversal on forgiving his own son, he seemed relatively unbothered. “So he said, ‘I’ll never forgive the child,’ OK… everyone’s going to do what they’re going to do with their own children,” he reasoned.
“But… if he had said in September 2023 or August that he wasn’t going to run, we would have won this damn election,” Carville argued. “And it wouldn’t have been that close because we would have had so many talented people competing.”
The longtime Democratic strategist said Biden could have left the White House “on a high note” as “the toast of Washington” with monuments named after him, and that a future Democratic president could have pardoned Hunter Biden.
“What’s so sad [is]it didn’t have to be this way,” Carville added. “He brought it all on himself.”
The strategist had predicted a clear victory for Harris, but conceded after the defeat that a lack of Democratic primaries had left the party without options. Carville reiterated Thursday that he deeply respects Biden, which made the election results all the more devastating, he said.
“You got all this damned wrong,” he said in the video. “It’s tragic, it’s sad, and of course it’s all on him… it’s going to be six years before anyone comes back and talks about all the amazing things. [Biden accomplished].”
