Let me make a few points about President Biden and his administration’s serial inability to tell the truth. Of course, the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, going AWOL is a prime example.  

We wish General Austin a total, full recovery from all of his health issues. Yet his health issues are not the problem. The problem is neither he nor his staff followed the proper communications chain of command. It sounds like a cover-up. And, obviously, that’s a huge mistake.  

I’ll tell you a quick story. When I served in the White House, I wound up in Walter Reed’s Intensive Care Unit on two separate occasions. Yet my staff immediately informed both the president and the cabinet secretary. They were short stays, and the boss called me to see how I was doing.  

There’s nothing hard about this. It’s just common sense. Then, the Situation Room people knew, the White House operators knew, my colleagues knew, and my team knew.  

Now, the defense secretary outranks the National Economic Council director, so, in terms of communications, that office has even greater responsibilities to let the president know. This is not about diagnosing health issues, it’s about communication protocols.  

Apparently, now Team Biden is ordering a review of Cabinet protocols. Yet common sense, not bureaucratic reviews, should rule the operation. Where are the adults?  

Remember, General Austin is essentially running two wars under the direction of the commander-in-chief, but here the commander-in-chief never called his top defense lieutenant and the defense secretary figured he didn’t have to let anyone know.  

Cover-up? Truth-telling? Common sense? Not a chance. Wait, though, while this Austin AWOL fiasco is going on, the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, again, fibbing about the illegal immigrants coming into America and staying here.  

Mr. Mayorkas tried to sell to the press that only 70 percent of the illegals stay here. Then, under questioning, he raised it to 85 percent. Both are awful numbers.  

Wait a minute, though, it turns out when Immigration and Customs Enforcement did their year-end review, they found more than 95 percent of illegals have been released into the interior of the country. Hat-tip to Breitbart News for the numbers.  

In fiscal 2023, more than 3.2 million illegals were encountered at the nation’s borders, while just 142,000 were deported by ICE. So, last year, illegal aliens who arrived in America had just a 4.4 percent chance of being deported within the year.  Mr. Mayorkas is not much of a truth-teller either, is he?  

And, of course, from Mr. Biden on down, this Administration keeps lying to the American people that the border’s really closed.  Well, what are all those pictures we see on nightly news shows? Closed? Really? Truth-telling?  

Then, of course, Mr. Biden keeps telling us how he’s cutting the budget deficit, which is a flat-out untruth, awarded Bottomless Pinocchios by the Washington Post.  

And Mr. Biden keeps telling us how good the economy is, even though one poll shows 45 percent say they’re worse off now than just a year ago. Another poll shows 68 percent describe the economy in negative terms.  

And, over the past three years, inflationary price increases have out-stripped worker wage gains, leading to an affordability crisis. No truth-telling there, either.  

And, finally, in the Bidens’ legal war against President Trump, not only is the president and his justice department and various special counsels and Democratic secretaries of state lying about Donald Trump’s so-called insurrection, which was neither charged nor convicted.

A new story from the Georgia branch of the Biden-directed legal war against Mr. Trump reports that District Attorney Fani Willis hired an alleged boyfriend to prosecute the former president.  

This is a great story. Ms. Willis hired a private lawyer — who had never prosecuted anything before except maybe ordering a ham sandwich at the local deli — appointed him special prosecutor, and paid him $654,000 in legal fees since January 2022.  

This story gets even better, though. The two of them took that $654,000 on a world tour. Vacationing on two cruise ships, going out to Napa Valley for a glass of wine, and then coming back to Florida for a little fun in the sun!  

I haven’t heard the Biden press operation talk about this yet, but I’m looking forward to their response.  Think they’ll fess up with the truth? Doubt it. 

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.