On Monday night, political commentators weighed in on President Joe Biden’s speech being delayed and there was broad agreement that the scheduling issue bordered on disrespectful to a president who had already been dumped from the 2024 ticket.
Invited to speak at 10:30 p.m. (ET), Biden took the stage just after 11 and finished up well past midnight.
Former co-host of “The View” Megan McCain took to X, venting her frustration at the late start time: “I’m tapping out – I can’t stay up this late, we all have lives and kids,” former “View” co-host Meghan McCain wrote on X Monday. “God speed to our 81 year old President getting through the speech at this hour. Whatever producers did this to him and let it go over this long at this hour is an a—— and it is disrespectful to Biden.”
Immediately before Biden was set to begin speaking, OutKick founder Clay Travis weighed in: “Democrats kicked Joe Biden out of the presidential race and now they aren’t even going to let him speak until after 11 pm eastern on the first night of the convention,” OutKick founder Clay Travis wrote before Biden’s speech. “Diabolical. They are nasty and play to win.”
After the Democratic National Convention opened in a large protest and Chicago businesses boarded up, there was an ongoing response from political analysts to Biden’s delay speech as it was viewed by some on purpose.
GOP staffer Abigail Jackson tweeted Monday: “Fitting that the DNC pushed Biden out of Primetime considering they pushed him out of the race too.”
Frustrated by his lackluster debate performance in June, Biden finally dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign. Biden then went on to endorse Kamala Harris for the 2024 democratic ticket.
A few commentators speculated that political calculations may have influenced the decision to move Biden’s speech out of primetime.
“Yeah, it’s disrespectful, but why would Democrats want to feature Joe Biden in primetime if they don’t have to?” National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote. “Harris needs distance from him, not to embrace him. Besides, once you’ve taken the nomination from him what’s pushing his speech out of prime time?”
“This is truly the ultimate humiliation ritual,” one conservative account added, noting Biden was “strong armed” off the ballot.
Former CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller said that Biden was “booted.”
“They took the nomination away from him and now booted him out of prime time,” Knoller wrote.
The DNC commented on the late start, saying: “Because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker, we ultimately skipped elements of our program to ensure we could get to President Biden as quickly as possible so that he could speak directly to the American people. We are proud of the electric atmosphere in our convention hall and proud that our convention is showcasing the broad and diverse coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the week on and off the stage.”
