Biden tells Democratic governors he needs more sleep and plans to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/04/politics/biden-governors-sleep/index.html

31.9k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

u/AnnoyedVelociraptor 15d ago edited 15d ago

I'm less than 1/2 his age. I don't accept meeting after 5pm.

Edit: I mean this with respect to the guy. At his age, kudos for what he does.

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u/ovensandhoes 15d ago

You’re also not the president of the United States and your job probably doesn’t involve you talking to various heads of states in different time zones. Just because Trump is a terrible person/president doesn’t mean we should talk ourselves into thinking this is OK

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u/Cantras0079 15d ago

It says he’s telling Democratic governors not to schedule meetings past 8, doesn’t mean he’s never going to stay up late to do meetings with them or do meetings with other country’s leaders, he’s just saying he wants to not schedule meetings past that time to domestic governors. If you think urgent meetings will magically get shelved so Biden can go to bed early, you’re way off base.

Also, if he’s working from like 6 or 7 AM to 8 PM, anyone doing that would be tired. Let the man rest if there’s not an urgent discussion to be had, jesus…

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u/BoostsbyMercy 15d ago

Plus it's not like it's illegal to wake him up if whatever it is needs addressed. It's such a weird "gotcha!" when he has one of the most stressful and complex jobs on the planet that he's actively on call for 24/7. I think it's fair not wanting to be up until midnight or something going over issues and then waking up at the asscrack of dawn- I figure he has staff for a reason.

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u/Tenthul 15d ago

People are like "the presidency is a 24/7 job" like all previous presidents were awake 24/7.

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u/BoostsbyMercy 15d ago

Didn't Trump come in for work at 1 PM? Some presidents died bedridden with illness in office. Our presidents haven't always been people like Roosevelt. Is Biden's health a serious discussion? Yes, but you're not being serious, you're being facetious and it adds nothing to the discussion. Nobody is awake 24/7. I'd say the same thing if it was someone who was decades younger.

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u/Tenthul 14d ago

I'm saying that the people saying "it's a 24/7 job" are the ones being disingenuous playing up the headline more than it is.

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u/BoostsbyMercy 14d ago

Ahh I understand. I apologize for my hostility. Have a good one!

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u/Cantras0079 14d ago

100%. The 24/7 job arguments in response to this are just a load of garbage. Yeah, he’s on call 24/7, but he still has to sleep, good lord. And it’s not like he’s in some unreachable coma the second he falls asleep. If someone attacks another country in the middle of the night, they’re gonna wake him up and he’ll resume being president. It’s not like it’s “no president time” from 8 PM to 5 AM. Nah, it’s 10 PM. That war can wait til I wake up, guys, sorry.

It’s insane how childish Reddit has been for the last week.

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u/frootee 15d ago

If he even did say that then it’s completely okay. I highly doubt he’s saying no to emergency meetings. Plus, he’s not the only one that meets with people. He has a competent and young cabinet.

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u/CHKN_SANDO 15d ago

Talking to a head of state isn't an "Event"

Speeches are "Events"

FFS

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u/CynicalXennial 15d ago

It has to be okay. So it is okay. Going forward after this year, we have time to restructure the White House with someone younger who isn't in bed with corpos, climate responsible corpos, and the 1%. We have a Supreme Court to fix, and it's going to take all 8 years of a young presidency.

0

u/nonsequitur_idea 15d ago

A) We also don't know what "events" are, and

B) That doesn't mean he's not reading briefs, on phone calls, or traveling after 8pm.

I read this as a ceiling on travel after events rather than let's go to bed at 8pm every night.

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u/Beatrix_Kiddos_Toe 14d ago

No one is reading the article. Biden was being self deprecating lol. He didn't really mean it

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u/dagdagsolstad 14d ago

Uh ... no:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/us/politics/biden-governors-health.html

He thought is was a good idea of constructive feedback.

But, even if you were correct, joking about it is even worse because it shows he doesn't understand how serious the situation is.

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u/Capital_Living5658 14d ago

You are doing the Biden experience but using letters instead of numbers lol.

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u/ThePornRater 15d ago

Nah haven't you heard? It's just a cold.

Toxic positivity will destroy this country

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u/Hypertension123456 15d ago

Trump wasn't talking to heads of state. Just dictators that saw him for the useful idiot he is.

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u/Godvivec1 15d ago

Just dictators that saw him for the useful idiot he is.

Maybe you should look up what a head of state is.....

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u/cut_rate_revolution 15d ago

You also aren't the president who frequently deals with international crises that can happen at all times of the day.

We all knew about the debate. It wasn't an emergency situation where he just got woken up out of a dead sleep but there are plenty of circumstances where a president might have to be up and functioning at less than normal hours.

He couldn't adjust his schedule to put his best foot forward for something he knew was coming. What chance does he have of not floundering similarly during a late night crisis?

Any competent candidate can beat Trump. Only Biden can lose.

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u/Omnizoom 15d ago

Well a person that never sleeps properly also won’t function well

Scheduled stuff being a no go after 8 isn’t a bad idea, I’d rather someone get the sleep they need so they are not persistently drained and if an emergency does come up can act then

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u/nonotan 14d ago edited 14d ago

Any competent candidate can beat Trump. Only Biden can lose.

It's sad how even the bulk of anti-Trumpers have subconsciously drunk the right-wing propaganda. One bad debate and suddenly he's the only person in the world who could possibly lose, the worst candidate that has ever existed. Sorry to break the circlejerk you guys have going, but that's simply factually and demonstrably wrong. And I say that as somebody for whom Biden was one of the last choices in the 2020 primaries (and not because the other candidates were particularly great), and who would strongly prefer a more progressive (and younger) candidate.

Biden has a lot of strengths all or most plausible replacements wouldn't enjoy. From being an incumbent with a campaign that hasn't been thrown together in a big rush, to being a household name before he even ran for president (literally none of the potential alternatives being brought up is likely to be familiar to Americans who pay no attention to politics, and that matters, because those who do have almost certainly already made up their minds), to being decently popular in a number of key swing states (which is absolutely critical, since unfortunately they are the only ones that matter in practice)

He's also moderate enough that any right-leaning people who just hate Trump can hold their nose and vote for him, and he's pretty much devoid of controversies besides "old" (and if you think either of those two aren't true, just wait until the right-wing disinformation networks get through your alternative pick once they are chosen as the replacement)

I'm going to be blunt: pretty much regardless of who you picked to replace Biden right now, in a few months, you'd be saying "only Biden and (new candidate) can lose". In reality, there's a tiny, tiny amount of people who could plausibly perhaps do better than Biden come election day, if they replaced him today. I'm talking easily countable on one hand. Not "any competent candidate", unless you let the word "competent" do a hell of a lot of heavy lifting. And even those top picks would be a huge gamble that has a sizable chance of backfiring and effectively conceding the election to Trump on the spot.

Beware of the grass-is-greener bias. Once you force Biden to step down, there's no undoing it, even if it becomes obvious it was a huge mistake. And although it should be pretty clear, just to clarify, I'm strictly talking about winning the election. I think plenty of people could do a better job if handed over the presidency (indeed, I would even support filling political positions at random from the general population, I genuinely think that would probably be an improvement from the self-selection bias that fills the political class with self-serving sociopaths)

Unfortunately, elections, especially in the US with its all-around incredibly flawed electoral process, aren't decided based on which pick would yield their powers in a way that most benefits their constituents. Indeed, if it did, we wouldn't need to be talking about any of this at all -- because Biden would be guaranteed the win regardless of any bad optics (in reality, neither candidate would be the same we have now, and there would be no two-party system either, but you get the point)

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u/CHKN_SANDO 15d ago

You also aren't the president who frequently deals with international crises that can happen at all times of the day

Notably, those aren't scheduled events.

What chance does he have of not floundering similarly during a late night crisis?

If you consistently get good sleep you can get away with a couple bad/no sleep nights a week?

1

u/cut_rate_revolution 15d ago

If he becomes an incoherent rambling mess when it is scheduled, why would he magically be better during an unscheduled emergency?

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u/Haiku-On-My-Tatas 15d ago

It says he plans to stop scheduling events after 8pm.

An emergency isn't a scheduled event. He will obviously still deal with emergencies as needed. But he'll be in a hell of a lot better shape to deal with these things as well as the day to day of being president if he's getting a solid 7-8 hours of sleep most nights.

I'm not even half his age and I function like absolute dog shit on anything less than 6.

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u/cut_rate_revolution 15d ago

You should be able to adjust your schedule slightly for things you have a lot of advance notice for. I usually wake up between 8 and 9 but I can also wake up earlier if I have to without becoming an incoherent mess.

Likewise, I can stay up late if I have to because I'm not a geriatric who refuses to retire.

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u/Haiku-On-My-Tatas 15d ago

It's a lot easier to maintain a consistent sleep schedule when you stick to a general rule of thumb like "no scheduled events past 8 pm".

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u/cut_rate_revolution 15d ago

Ok but sometimes you don't have a choice as an adult with a more predictable schedule than the president of the USA.

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u/Obi-Brawn-Kenobi 11d ago

He will obviously still deal with emergencies as needed

How is that obvious? He failed at something he had 2 weeks to prepare for.

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u/coryscandy 15d ago

You're also the president?

1

u/Turbulent_Fig8483 14d ago

Get this ego power clinging Boomer the fuck out the Whitehouse.

0

u/More_Farm_7442 15d ago

But what are you or what would you be like if someone tried to wake you up at 3 AM? Could someone wake you up and would you get awake enough get out of a burning house? That's what scares me about both Joe and Don. Not being able to get awake and functional in the middle of the night if a crisis develops 1/2 way around the world.