SURROUNDINGS: On Friday night, Joe Biden spoke!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2026

A few hours later, it started: As the midnight hour approached last night, there he went again. 

As of last Friday, he had made the final decision—the war in Iran would proceed. Last evening, as midnight drew near, he was now "truthing" this: 

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better - As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!). At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries. Sleepy Joe Biden spent all of his time, and our Country’s money, GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine - Hundreds of Billions of Dollars worth - And, while he gave so much of the super high end away (FREE!), he didn’t bother to replace it. Fortunately, I rebuilt the military in my first term, and continue to do so. The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP 

The angry name-calling never ends in the course of the president's "truthing." 

To us, the name-calling seems astoundingly childish; some others find it "refreshing." It is, of course, their perfect right to assess this matter that

Yesterday, we floated several questions about the person at issue. For starters:

Is this the person you would have chosen to be the ultimate decision-maker with respect to a matter like this? 

That was one of the questions we floated. We also floated questions and concerns about the array of medical syndromes which are still often described as "mental illness"—about the array of medical conditions which may affect a person's intellectual and emotional capacities in ways which may be harmful. 

Do people choose to be so challenged? (Do people who are "mentally ill" choose to be "mentally ill?") We're going to guess that they don't. But "mental illness" is a condition we moderns have little ability to discuss. 

This leads us back to events and conditions surrounding this president as the decision in question was made. 

Last Thursday evening, the onset of the current war was a bit more than one day away. As happenstance had it, a pair of events took place on Thursday and Friday nights. They were part of this war's surroundings. 

We've been discussing the first event since last Saturday's report For better or worse, correctly or otherwise, the president's clinical therapist niece went on CNN last Thursday and offered the kind of assessment which has long been disappeared. 

By the rules of the Blue American game, you haven't been allowed to voice such thoughts, even as a worrying possibility. Those rules had held for the past nine years, but there Mary Trump went again:

ERIN BURNETT (2/26/26): You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a [cognitive] decline?

MARY L. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines. 

The fact that she said it doesn't mean that it's true. On the other hand, the fact that such ruminations have been forbidden doesn't mean that the musings are wrong. 

As happenstance had it, Mary Trump went on CNN and said that last Thursday night. (CNN offered no subsequent disclaimers for allowing this to be said.) As happenstance had it, that rumination was part of the surroundings as the war with Iran approached. 

One night later, a very important public figure made a set of statements in South Carolina—statements which, like Mary Trump's rumination on CNN, were almost completely ignored all through the rest of the discourse.

That major figure was President Bidem, President Trump's immediate predecessor. Tommy Christopher cited his comments in a report at Mediaite. 

Except for Christopher's report, we don't think we would have known about this event at all:

Biden Taunts Trump In New Speech: ‘I Handed Trump The Strongest Economy In The World!’

Former President Joe Biden taunted President Donald Trump over jobs and the economy, comparing their jobs records and declaring “I handed Trump the strongest economy in the world!”

At 2:30 AM Saturday, Trump posted an announcement that the United States was in the process of attacking Iran in a video message from Mar-a-lago, attacks that would dominate the news Saturday.

Hours before the attacks, Biden gave a speech to the South Carolina Democratic Party to commemorate the anniversary of his win in the state’s pivotal primary in 2020.

The war was hours away as President Biden spoke. As Christopher's report continued, he transcribed some of what the former president had said, with videotape included:

BIDEN (2/27/26): When I was president, we created over 16 million jobs in America. We had the lowest average unemployment rate in 50 years.

In fact, in just my last year as president of the United States in 2024, we created, just the last year, 2.2 million additional jobs.

You know how many jobs Trump’s created in his first year as president? 185,000 jobs! Total! That's it! 

Of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Trump’s the only president, other than Herbert Hoover, who had fewer jobs when he left office than when he came into office. That’s a fact!

[...]

The day I left office, border crossings in the United States were lower than the day that I entered that office, inherited from Trump. He is—I won’t say it. 

(LAUGHTER).

That’s just a fact.

The day I left office, I handed Trump the strongest economy in the world! In the world! That’s not hyperbole, that is a fact! 

So said the former president. For better or worse (opinions differ), the start of the war was mere hours away.

President Biden's accurate statements about the economy were part of the surroundings in the wake of last week's State of the Union address—but only if you read the New York Times, or if you receive your information from other parts of Blue American media. 

If you watch the Fox News Channel, you almost surely never heard the long list of accurate fact-checks about President Trump's inaccurate claims about the nation's economy. 

Red Americans weren't asked to hear about the sitting president's latest howlers. These are the wages of separation—of "segregation by viewpoint." 

With respect to that nation's economy, Blue Americans were allowed to hear the facts. Red Americans were not.

Having said that, we must also say this—what President Biden said about the border was, in fact, factually accurate but grossly misleading. There the former president went again, refusing to explain:

The day I left office, border crossings in the United States were lower than the day that I entered that office, inherited from Trump. He is—I won’t say it.

(LAUGHTER).

That’s just a fact.

"That's just a fact," he said, after the audience laughed. As far as we know, it's a technically accurate statement of fact—but that accurate statement continues a politically counterproductive evasion, one which is grossly misleading.

Palmetto State Democrats, please! The question about President Biden's performance at the southern border concerns the first three-plus years of his term in office. It doesn't concern what happened in the second half of his final year, when some policy changes were made.

Over at the Fox News Channel, deep in the heart of Red America, viewers never heard about all the absurd misstatements the sitting president made in his State of the Union address. They do hear all sorts of statements, many of which may even be accurate, about the policy the previous president maintained at the southern border.

Over here in Blue America, the situation is different. We get to hear about the sitting president's wide assortment of misstatements about the economy. Like the denizens of Red America, we still haven't heard an explanation of President Biden's unusual border policy—and what he said, to that laughing crowd, was the latest evasion.

Messengers at the Fox News Channel still live off President Biden's unexplained border policy. They refer to that matter all day long. Their statements are often basically accurate, even if the large numbers they cite may tend to be made up.

Red Americans hear about that; Blue American media tends to avert its gaze. In such ways, two large groups of American voters come to understand the world in vastly different ways.

Mary Trump spoke on Thursday night. One night later, so did President Biden. Their statements were part of the cultural surroundings as the war with Iran drew near.

As of last night, the decision-maker compared Zelensky to P. T. Barnum. People, we're just saying!

Tomorrow: In our view, astounding misconduct