Joe Biden has a Bill Ackman problem, too

Bill Ackman, whose outspoken criticism of Claudine Gay’s inadequate response to antisemitism at Harvard and subsequent vow to expose plagiarism in academia and in the media, is a force to be reckoned with.

So when he declared in the wake of the Iowa Caucus that President Trump was going to blow Joe Biden out of the water come November, it drew headlines.

According to the New York Post:

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman reacted to former President Donald Trump’s landslide victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses by warning Democrats that incumbent President Joe Biden is toast.

“If you haven’t figured it out already, it is now abundantly clear that @realDonaldTrump is going to crush @POTUS,” the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management wrote on his X social media account on Tuesday.

Ackman, who has become far more vocal in the public sphere since the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel and the subsequent eruption of antisemitism on college campuses, repeated his call for the 81-year-old Biden to “step aside” so that the Democratic Party can “quickly get behind a strong, credible contender” for the presidency.

 Ackman’s a hedge fund guy and hedge fund guys are hard realists who are paid to know what is going to happen. Ackman’s one of the best, given that he’s a billionaire, so he often gets a lot of such predications right. 

That’s bad news for Joe Biden, of course, and it’s what a lot of us think intuitively. It’s doubly bad for him because Ackman’s a Democrat, not a Republican, and he doesn’t make money through wishful thinking.

All the same, there’s a such thing among the Wall Street sharks known as ‘talking one’s position.’ That’s when a trading ace like Ackman might say what he hopes will happen when he’s really hoping that others will make their trading decisions accordingly.

Based on the Post’s reporting of the bad blood between Joe Biden and Bill Ackman, that may easily be what’s happening.

Ackman and Biden have history. In 2017, Biden referred to Ackman as an “a–hole,” according to an item recently unearthed by the news site Mediaite.

The two men were guests at a dinner hosted by former Trump press secretary and hedge funder Anthony Scaramucci, according to Fox Business.

During the get-together, Biden was asked by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush why he declined to run for president in 2016. He then told the assembled guests that he passed up the White House run because he was still in mourning over the death of his son Beau in 2015.

When the room grew quiet, Biden apologized, saying: “I’m sorry…I’ve said enough.”

Ackman is then reported to have chimed in: “Why? That’s never stopped you before.”

Biden then turned to someone near him and asked, in reference to Ackman: “Who is this a–hole?”

He then turned directly to Ackman and said: “Look, I don’t know who you are, wiseass, but never disrespect the memory of my dead son!”

The Post reports that Ackman then tried to apologize, even though he insulted Biden, not his dead son — and Biden got more aggressive.

When Ackman reportedly tried to apologize, Biden would hear none of it, saying: “Just shut the hell up.” 

Eeew. Ackman tried to be decent, even though that didn’t seem too necessary, and Biden bit his head off for trying. It sounds pretty in character for Joe Biden, given his well-known inability to control his temper. Given the host, and the presence of Biden, what hideous company Ackman was in on that wretched night. He must remember that night well.

So now Ackman’s giving payback, the billionaire way, by bankrolling Biden’s primary challenger, Democrat Dean Phillips. It won’t be a smooth sail to the Democrat nomination for Old Joe, and this comes amid many calls among Democrats to get rid of him based on his dotage — and here’s a sleeper issue Ackman hasn’t addressed yet but voters are onto — Biden’s corruption, as a new TIPP poll reports. Ackman is putting his money where his mouth is, giving Joe a well-financed political campaign machine to compete against him as just one more thing for him to worry about.

So in being an absolute dinner-party creep, Biden bought himself a primary challenger and a big hedge fund billionaire exuberantly announcing to the world, via Twitter, that he was going to lose big.

It’s all in line with what is really happening, it’s just that Ackman is amplifying Biden’s challenges and problems. 

It’s not for nothing that Joe Biden has been called stupid in many contexts.

His making a guy he didn’t know look bad in front of others and failing to show any magninimousness when the guy tried to correct himself pretty well all by itself tells us all we need to know about why Joe Biden is unfit as U.S. president. Imagine him trying to cut deals in Congress or negotiate with dictators. That complete absence of common sense is a disqualifier in itself. Now Ackman’s after him, getting ready to put another antler-head on his wall, and Claudine Gay can tell Joe all about it.

Image: Insider Monkey, via Flickr // CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED