Former President Joe Biden should never have sought a second term. That conclusion is no longer a matter of partisan speculation — it’s a broadly shared realization. What demands closer attention now is how many of those closest to him either ignored or concealed the truth about his decline and, in some cases, profited from it.
One name that’s currently in the spotlight is Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime adviser and political counselor. According to newly surfaced details, Donilon received $4 million for his work on the president’s reelection campaign, with another $4 million promised had Biden won. For someone billed as a devoted public servant, that’s a staggering sum. And it raises the question whether financial self-interest overrode professional judgment.
Donilon wasn’t new to the Biden world. He’d been with the president for decades. If anyone was in a position to see Biden’s diminishing capacity, it was him. Yet rather than sounding the alarm, Donilon doubled down — pressing ahead with a reelection campaign many in the party were quietly dreading. In testimony to Congress, Donilon claimed Biden had “grown stronger and wiser” through the trials of his presidency. That might pass as appropriate flattery at a retirement dinner. As political analysis, it borders on willful misrepresentation.
Donilon’s decision to push forward had consequences — not just for Joe Biden, but for the Democratic Party and the country. This wasn’t merely poor strategy or misplaced optimism.
It was a fundamental failure of responsibility by someone who was supposed to protect both the candidate and the mission.
Until recently, much of the public scrutiny focused on former First Lady Jill Biden, who has been portrayed as the president’s fiercest advocate and perhaps the person most insistent on his staying the course. But it now appears she wasn’t alone. A cadre of longtime aides, consultants and loyalists chose to remain quiet, preserve their influence and keep the machinery running — regardless of the costs. Some were blinded by sentiment. Others, like Donilon, may have been motivated by more calculable incentives.
Many inside the campaign were reportedly uneasy with Donilon’s towering compensation and his grip on strategic decisions. By contrast, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon earned a fraction of his pay. And that disparity speaks volumes about where power — and perhaps priorities — lay in the Biden reelection effort.
None of this absolves the former president himself. But it does underscore how tightly the circle around him had closed, how insulated he had become and how little internal dissent was tolerated. Rather than confront hard truths, those in Biden’s inner circle helped delay a necessary reckoning, leaving the party scrambling for alternatives in the middle of an election year.
This episode is more than a political embarrassment. It’s a case study in what happens when institutions fail to check power, when loyalty curdles into complicity and when self-interest masquerades as conviction.
Democrats now face a hard road ahead. They must rebuild credibility, re-earn trust and present a clear vision for the country. But they also owe the public something more immediate: accountability. Not just for Biden’s misjudgment, but for those who enabled it — those who should have known better, and perhaps did.
The party and the nation deserved more honest stewardship than they received. There is a lesson to be learned.
