Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:24 am

Former Vice President Joe Biden showed the sort integrity, decency, and leadership that is missing in this White House under Donald Trump when he was asked about Rob Porter.

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Biden spoke to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

Mitchell: How do you explain his access to the president of the United States and the chief of staff, frankly, in the last 24 hours describing him as a man of personal integrity?

Biden: I can’t explain it. It’s long past due that he’s departed. If you look at it from the perspective of one thing, the FBI didn’t think he should get a permanent security clearance.

Mitchell: They had to know that.

Biden: I’m sure they knew that. Look, I — the culture is changing, and thank god, but not fast enough. The idea that this would happen in the oval office. Now, I don’t know. I heard in the way I was briefed on the way in, when the president found out about it, he said, go, so if that’s the case, that the president never knew about it, good for the president, for saying that.

Mitchell: How could the president not know one of his closest advisers did not have a top security clearance? What does that say about the president and this White House?

Biden: Oh, Andrea. Look, I’m having enormous difficulty underlying how this white house functions.

Joe Biden has spent decades of his life on efforts to end violence against women

Former vice president Biden was decades ahead of the cultural shift on domestic violence. A 2014 White House release summarized Biden’s signature effort, The Violence Against Women Act, “On June 20, 1990, then-Senator Joe Biden introduced the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the United States Congress. This act was a landmark piece of legislation that changed the way our country responded to domestic violence and sexual assault. VAWA changed law enforcement practices, improved the criminal justice system, and created a network of services for victims. The bill established new federal crimes of interstate domestic violence and stalking doubled penalties for repeat sex offenders, and sparked the passage of laws at the state level to protect victims. Since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, rates of domestic violence have decreased by over 50%.”

Joe Biden shows Trump what real leadership looks like

While Biden was fighting to end violence against women, Trump was spending decades sexually assaulting women. Joe Biden is the kind of person that Americans could be proud to have as their president.

Real leadership is not hearing about a staff member who has committed acts of domestic violence against multiple women and turning a blind eye or having a chief of staff who fights to keep the wife beater in the administration.

A real president would fire Rob Porter, fire John Kelly, and get rid everyone who thought Rob Porter should stay.

Joe Biden may or may not run for president, but he is proof that true leadership and decency still exist, and they are coming to take their country back from Donald Trump.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association