LARRY KUDLOW: Biden has a serial inability to tell the truth

Let me make a few points about Joe Biden and his administration's serial inability to tell the truth. Of course, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin going AWOL is a prime example. We wish General Austin a total, full recovery from all of his health issues, but his health issues are not the problem. The problem is neither he nor his staff followed the proper communications chain of command.   

It sounds like a cover-up. Obviously, that's a huge mistake.  I'll tell you a quick story. When I served in the White House, I wound up in Walter Reed’s Intensive Care Unit on two separate occasions, but my staff immediately informed both the president and the cabinet secretary. They were short stays and the boss called me to see how I was doing.   

There's nothing hard about this. It's just common sense. Then, the Situation Room people knew, the White House operators knew, my colleagues knew and my team knew. Now, the problem is Defense Secretary outranks the National Economic Council director, so in terms of communications, that office has even greater responsibilities to let the president know.  

LARRY KUDLOW: THE BIDEN ADMIN NEEDS TO CHECK ALL THEIR BADLY MANAGED OPERATIONS 

This is not about diagnosing health issues, it's about communication protocols. Apparently, now Team Biden is ordering a review of Cabinet protocols, but that's so goofy. Common sense, not bureaucratic reviews, should rule the operation.   

Where are the adults? Remember, General Austin is essentially running two wars under the direction of the commander-in-chief, but here the commander-in-chief never called his top defense lieutenant and the secretary of defense figured he didn't have to let anyone know.   

Cover-up? Truth-telling? Common sense? Not a chance, but wait, while this Austin AWOL fiasco is going on, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, again, fibbing about the illegal immigrants coming into the U.S. and staying here. He tried to sell news media that only 70% of the illegals stay here.  

Then, under questioning, he raised it to 85%. Both are awful numbers, but – wait a minute – it turns out when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did their year-end review, over 95% of illegals have been released into the interior of the country.   

Hat-tip to Breitbart News for the numbers. In FY 2023, more than 3.2 million illegals were encountered at the nation's borders, while just 142,000 were deported by ICE. So, last year, illegal aliens who arrived in the U.S. had just a 4.4% chance of being deported within the year. Mayorkas is not much of a truth-teller either, is he?   

Of course, from Joe Biden on down, this Administration keeps lying to the American people that the border's really closed.  Well, what are all those pictures we see on nightly news shows? Closed? Really? Truth-telling?  Then, of course, Joe Biden keeps telling us how he's cutting the budget deficit, which is a flat-out untruth, awarded Bottomless Pinocchios by the Washington Post.   

Biden keeps telling us how good the economy is, even though one poll shows 45% say they're worse off now than just a year ago. Another poll shows 68% describe the economy in negative terms and, over the past three years, inflationary price increases have outstripped worker wage gains, leading to an affordability crisis. No truth-telling there, either.   

Finally, in the Bidens’ legal war against Donald Trump, not only is the president and his Justice Department and various special counsels and Democratic secretaries of state lying about Donald Trump's so-called insurrection, which was neither charged nor convicted... a new story from the Georgia branch of the Biden-directed legal war against Trump reports that District Attorney Fani Willis hired an alleged boyfriend to prosecute Donald Trump. This is a great story.   

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Fani Willis hired a private lawyer, who had never prosecuted anything before except maybe ordering a ham sandwich at the local deli, she appointed him special prosecutor and paid him $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022.

This story gets even better! The two of them took that $654,000 on a world tour, vacationing on two cruise ships, going out to Napa Valley for a glass of wine and then coming back to Florida for a little fun in the sun!  I haven't heard the Biden press operation talk about this yet, but I'm looking forward to their response. Think they'll fess up with the truth?  Doubt it. 

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the January 9, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."