How do you know an interview went very, very wrong? When the people who support the person being interviewed go silent on social media, which is what has been happening since Joe Biden’s 60-Minutes interview that aired Sunday night.
Here are the six biggest takeaways:
Biden Thinks His Disapproval Rating Is So High Because the People Have Mental Issues
The Gateway Pundit – “Your approval rating in the country is well below 50% and I wonder why you think that is,” Scott Pelley said.
“It’s a really difficult time,” Biden said. “We’re in an inflection point in the history of this country. We’re gonna make decisions and we’re making decisions now that are gonna determine what we’re gonna look like 10 years from now.”
Biden continued, “The impact on the psyche of the American people as the consequence of the pandemic is profound…think of how that has changed everything – you know, people’s attitudes about themselves, their families about the state of the nation, about the state of their communities and so there is a lot of uncertainty out there.”
What a joke.
Biden: People disapprove of me because they are psychologically unable to be happy pic.twitter.com/syg1nNPtJw
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 19, 2022
If China Invades Taiwan, It’s War and We’re In It
The Daily Wire – “On the same day we spoke to the president, Putin met with China’s leader, Xi Jinping,” Pelley said while narrating. “There’s concern that Russia’s attempt to force reunification with Ukraine could inspire China to attack the island of Taiwan. U.S. policy since 1979 has been to recognize Taiwan as part of China, but remain silent on whether the U.S. military would defend the democratic government there. This is among the places where our interview runs into controversy.”
Pelley asked Biden, “What should Chinese President Xi know about your commitment to Taiwan?”
“We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago. And that there’s one China policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence,” Biden responded. “We are not moving — we’re not encouraging their being independent. We’re not — that — that’s their decision.”
“But would U.S. Forces defend the island?” Pelley asked.
“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,” Biden responded.
Pelley said that after the interview a White House official told the show that U.S. policy has not changed and they refused to say if the U.S. Military would defend Taiwan.
“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. Forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?” Pelley pressed.
“Yes,” Biden doubled-down.
President Biden tells 60 Minutes that U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. However, after our interview, a White House official told us that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed. https://t.co/ANg54LifSH pic.twitter.com/V5qjoqF36T
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 19, 2022
Biden May Not Run in 2024
Valiant News – The elderly president made the remarks during his appearance on “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, responding when asked whether he’s made a “firm decision” on whether to run in 2024, reported the New York Post.
“Look, my intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again,” Biden said in response, reiterating a statement he’s made in the past when asked if he plans to run for reelection.
“But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again?” Biden admitted, “That remains to be seen.”
60 Min: "Are you committed to running again?"
Biden: "My intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again. But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” pic.twitter.com/3R3W3I8e9Z
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 19, 2022
Biden’s Mental Acuity Was Poor When Asked About His Mental Acuity
The Right Scoop – Now, keep in mind, the stumbling answer he gives here would be called proof of unfitness for a Republican and the media and Democrats lurched for the 25th Amendment over practically nothing when Trump was in office.
With Biden they will not only act like he TOTALLY NAILED IT on this question, they will pretend that anyone who points out that he barely got a thought out is completely crazy. The media being in the tank affects every aspect of everything, so of course this.
“Watch me. And I mean honest to God, that’s all I think, watch me. If you think I don’t have the energy level or the, the mental acuity, then, you know, that’s one thing. It’s another thing if you just watch and, and, you know, keep my schedule. Do what I’m doing.”
Biden Thinks the Pandemic Is Over
Becker News – “Is the pandemic over?” CBS’ Scott Pelley asked.
“The pandemic is over,” Biden said. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing mask, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing and I think this is a perfect example.”
In February 2020, the Trump administration declared a “public health emergency” due to the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement came 3 days after the World Health Organization declared a Global Health Emergency.
Biden’s Handlers Are Scrambling
Red State – In fact, within an hour of the interview premiering, the first clarification had already dropped regarding comments the president made about defending Taiwan from a Chinese attack. That was the second time in the last few months that the administration has had to walk back Biden’s comments on the subject.
Things didn’t get better as the topics changed. When asked about inflation, Biden gave perhaps the worst answer imaginable.
Biden: "inflation rate month-to-month was just up an inch."
Reporter: "You're not arguing 8.3% is good news?"
Biden: “…You're acting like all of a sudden 'my God it went to 8.2%’”
Reporter: "It's the highest rate in 40 years."pic.twitter.com/KdvyH6J7L4
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 19, 2022
When it comes to bad economic news, there are two ways to handle it as a president. The right way is to admit the truth and then lay out a quantifiable plan for how to improve things. Americans are very forgiving of politicians who speak plainly to them. On the other hand, the wrong way is to simply pretend like everything is actually great and that anyone who doesn’t think so is an idiot. Guess which strategy Biden has chosen?
The dismissive snark about an 8.3 inflation rate that is crushing the poor and middle-class is just astonishing to witness. His skin is so thin you can see straight through it, and while I know Biden doesn’t have to live with any of the consequences of his policies, you’d think he could at least fake it a little. Besides, his excuse doesn’t even make sense. Who cares if the rate only went up “an inch” if the overall rate is still sky-high? Core inflation continues to rise, mainly driven by food and housing (including rent) prices.
But if that exchange wasn’t bad enough, Biden decided to declare that “the pandemic is over” regarding the coronavirus.
Biden: “The pandemic is over.” pic.twitter.com/e06enYWqDq
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 19, 2022
This will be the last time we ever see Joe Biden delivering an interview with anyone of prominence like 60-Minutes. His team knew he would botch it, but this goes far beyond their wildest expectations.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
