Joe Biden released a two-minute promotional video for his upcoming memoir on Tuesday. It was pre-recorded. It had b-roll footage. It had jump cuts. It went through a full editing process before anyone hit publish.
And he still couldn't get through it.
The 83-year-old former president posted the teaser across his social media channels promoting a book titled "Promise Me, America" — a sequel of sorts to his 2017 memoir "Promise Me, Dad." Biden reportedly secured a $10 million advance for the project, which is scheduled for release on November 17, landing two weeks after midterm elections and three days before his 84th birthday.
The book will reportedly cover January 6, Covid, and — perhaps most delicately — why he "chose to step aside" from the 2024 presidential race. That last chapter should be interesting, given that what most Americans remember is a debate performance so catastrophic that his own party spent six weeks publicly begging him to quit.
This wasn't a live press conference where the teleprompter glitched. This was a produced, edited, curated promotional spot — the kind of content where a team of professionals picks the best takes, stitches them together with flattering footage, and releases only what makes the subject look good. Biden's team had every advantage available in modern video production, and the final product still left viewers wondering if someone should check on him.
The timing raises its own questions. Democrats heading into the 2026 midterms now get to relitigate the entire 2024 cycle as Biden's book tour rolls out. Multiple memoirs from Biden administration figures are reportedly in the pipeline, each one promising to reopen wounds the party has spent two years trying to stitch closed. The decision to drop this video the same week Congress is in session suggests either remarkable tone-deafness or a calculated bet that nostalgia will sell better than the current Democratic bench.
Defenders will point out that Biden has always been a gaffe-prone speaker. But the question was never whether Biden could think clearly in private. The question was whether the man who held the nuclear codes for four years was capable of sustained public communication — and a two-minute edited video just answered it again.
Ten million dollars buys a lot of things. Ghost writers. Professional editors. A production crew that can reshoot until the lighting is perfect. What it apparently can't buy is a clean two-minute read from the man whose name goes on the cover.
The book drops November 17. The midterms are November 3. Democrats get two weeks of Biden reminding the country exactly why they lost.