This is exactly what a healthy and functional chief executive looks like.

This started with reports that the Biden administration would offer $450,000 payouts to illegal alien invaders that could go much higher.

The Biden administration is in talks to offer *illegal alien* families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter

The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. 

When Biden was asked about it, he called the reports “garbage” and promised it wouldn’t happen. The ACLU corrected him and his administration awkwardly twisted in the wind while telling the DOJ to lower the settlement offer.

 Joe Biden on Wednesday disputed a report that migrant families separated at the U.S. southern border during the Trump administration would be getting payments of $450,000 each under a settlement agreement.

“That’s not going to happen,” the president said at a press conference at the White House.

In response to a Fox News reporter’s question on the proposed settlement, Biden said the report of the payments — first published in The Wall Street Journal — was “garbage.”

And in a few days Biden went from, “That’s not going to happen,” to, “It’s happening and it’s a good thing.”

“If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal and you lost your child, you lost your child, he’s gone, you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance.”

“Lost your child”?

Is Biden lying or just dumb. It’s usually hard to tell. 

What we do know is that after an initial response to this as a terrible idea, Biden is now defending it while quibbling over the exact amount of money he’s going to steal from Americans to give to illegal alien invaders to incentivize more illegal migration.

That tells you who’s calling the shots in the Biden administration. And it ain’t Joe.