Why, according to the White House, did Joe Biden have to end his reelection bid? This is the question that the Biden/Harris administration has danced around ever since Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race and endorsing Kamala Harris over a month ago.

Biden, in his written withdrawal announcement, gave a rather coy and limited explanation for his decision to drop out. He wrote, “While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

There was no explanation for the sudden turnaround when, just days earlier, the entire White House team, including Harris herself, insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack and fully ready for another four-year term.

Reeling from his historically terrible debate performance, Biden resisted the pressure to step aside, asserting that only “the Lord Almighty” could convince him to end his campaign.

The truth, however, is it was no longer a secret that Biden was in serious cognitive decline and that he was in no state to preside as president for another four years, let alone another five months. But instead of immediately stepping aside and allowing Harris to take over, Biden has remained in office while effectively disappearing from the scene.

This naturally raises an important question: Who, exactly, is running the country these days? If Biden is in no condition to continue, then why has he not stepped down? Harris has repeatedly insisted that Biden has remained cognitively sharp and in control, but does anyone really believe her?

In her lone interview since being nominated by the Democrats, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Harris about her staunch defense of Biden and his reelection campaign. Harris simply reiterated the White House talking point that Biden “is so smart and — and loyal to the American people,” claiming that she’d spent so much time with him that she could personally attest to his mental acuity.

Unfortunately, Bash, who is clearly in the tank for the Democrats, didn’t push back and ask the obvious question: Why, if Biden is so fit and capable, did Harris not encourage him to continue running for the presidency? Furthermore, what does she have to offer the country that Biden doesn’t?

Here’s where the White House and Democrats are trying to have it both ways. They are gaslighting the American public by tacitly recognizing that Biden is no longer mentally fit for office while at the same time claiming that he is sharp as a tack and fully capable of leading the country over the next several months.

There is also the matter of Biden essentially having gone quiet since he ended his campaign. The reason, of course, is simple: Harris is campaigning not as an incumbent, as one would expect of someone who’s held the second-highest office for three and a half years, but as an outsider. She’s trying to distance herself from her own record with Biden because it reminds Americans just how bad the country has had it under his leadership.

Going forward, it appears that Biden will continue to hide as Harris plays the role of the outsider utterly disconnected from the miserable Biden/Harris record. Instead of stepping up to run the country in Biden’s absence, Harris is running from that responsibility to campaign on, er, running the country.

I’ll ask it again: Who’s running the country?