Nancy Pelosi once wanted Joe Biden carved into Mount Rushmore. Apparently, the people who write big checks have a slightly less ambitious vision. The former president’s proposed library has no announced building site, terrible fundraising problems, and former supporters saying their wallets will stay closed.
In August 2024, Pelosi actually suggested Biden belonged beside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. She called him a “Mount Rushmore kind of president.” It was an extraordinary tribute to a man whose own party had just pressured him to abandon his reelection campaign. Perhaps the next logical step was asking South Dakota whether it accepted installment payments.
Biden’s library foundation reported roughly $4 million in assets on its 2024 tax return, inherited from unused money raised for his 2021 inauguration. Its projections anticipated only $11.3 million in total receipts by the end of 2027, while aides envisioned a project costing around $200 million. The $4 million isn’t a verified balance as of October 2026. Nobody has publicly established how much the foundation has raised since.
The newest donor interviews are hardly encouraging. Longtime Democratic benefactor John Morgan says he won’t contribute, arguing that decisions made around him damaged Biden’s legacy. Another donor doubts a full-scale library will ever materialize. Delaware has been selected, but no specific building site has been chosen.
For a man celebrated as a towering historical figure, the project has an unusually modest foundation.
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Biden’s history makes the fundraising predicament more interesting. His first presidential campaign ended in September 1987 after revelations that he borrowed language from British politician Neil Kinnock without proper, or any, credit. An earlier law-school plagiarism incident also resurfaced. He later admitted to exaggerating academic claims, including his boast that he finished in the top half of his law-school class. He actually graduated 76th out of 85.
There aren’t that many presidential libraries with fiction titles.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden also claimed he’d been arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in South Africa, later acknowledging he hadn’t been arrested.
For a politician who marketed his life story as proof of character, the revisions kept coming long after the first edition.
Now, let’s talk Clarence Thomas, whose confirmation hearings began in 1991. As Senate Judiciary chairman, Biden faced lasting criticism over the treatment of Anita Hill and the failure to call potential supporting witnesses. Years later, he regretted that she hadn’t received a fair hearing.
Admittedly, he should’ve done that. Why? Because that hearing exposed his idiocy to the nation. Any sideshow with Hill may have prevented that admission.
His presidency supplied additional chapters I wouldn’t be eager to sponsor. The chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan ended with 13 American service members killed in an ISIS bombing at Kabul’s airport. The poor fella had a heckuva time waiting to unload those coffins. He kept checking his watch as though he had an ice cream date.
This photo says everything that you need to know about Joe Biden. Why was he checking his watch?😡 https://t.co/NUVMIoP3q0
— General™️ (@TheGeneral_0) April 15, 2023
Inflation, meanwhile, reached 9.1% in June 2022, punishing household budgets while Biden repeatedly described his economic leadership in glowing terms. Americans paying grocery bills didn’t need a museum guide to explain what it was like.
And consider the family business. House Republicans alleged that relatives traded on the Biden name through lucrative overseas arrangements, allegations that never resulted in a criminal conviction against Joe Biden. His own decision in December 2024 is beyond dispute: after pledging not to pardon Hunter Biden, he granted his son sweeping clemency covering federal offenses over nearly 11 years.
One exhibit could feature the promises, while another could display the pardon.
His presidential records already have an official home with the National Archives in Maryland. What’s uncertain is whether historians will preserve the documents in the privately funded Delaware museum. History deserves access to every presidency, including those that truly failed.
I wish Biden a healthy retirement, but I wouldn’t donate a nickel to polish his record. His wealthy admirers are free to disagree, preferably with their checkbooks. Pelosi supplied the mountain-prized praise.
The missing part is finding enough donors who believe it.
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