Biden’s complex legacy as his 50 years in public office comes to an end

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• Amna Nawaz:

  President Joe Biden's five-decade-long tenure in public service comes to an end later this month, spanning four years as president, eight as second in command and many more serving his home state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

  To examine the president's time in office and his legacy, I'm joined now by two reporters who have covered his career extensively.

  Dan Balz is chief correspondent for The Washington Post and has covered Mr. Biden for decades. And Annie Linskey covers the White House for The Wall Street Journal.

  Welcome to you both. Thanks for being here.

• Dan Balz, The Washington Post:

  Thank you.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Dan, I want to start with you, because Mr. Biden has spent 50 years, over half his life, in public service. He was first elected at just 27 years old to a Delaware County Council seat, three years later, became one of the youngest senators in U.S. history, clearly had big ambitions from the beginning.

  But, in those early years, how did he put his stamp on Washington?

• Dan Balz:

  You know, it's very interesting. His career almost ended before it started because of the tragedy of his wife and daughter being killed in an auto accident and his two sons being badly injured.

  He thought about resigning even before he had been sworn in. He was talked out of that by Mike Mansfield, who was the Senate majority leader at the time, who kind of took him under his wing and guided him through that first very difficult year in the Senate. And I think that made him kind of a creature of the Senate.

  And over the years, he embedded himself on two very important committees, one, Foreign Relations, and, second, the Judiciary Committee. And this allowed him to develop expertise in obviously two very significant areas. He was very active on Supreme Court nominations. He was very active in the 1994 crime bill. And, on foreign policy, he was — he was in and out of many, many crises, wars in the Middle East and other issues.

  And so that time in the Senate gave him expertise that he later applied to the presidency. But I think it also gave him a sense of the rhythm of Washington and the rhythm of the legislative branch, which also served him while he's been in the White House.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Annie, Dan mentioned that loss early in his life, in his career, losing his wife and his daughter, later, years later, losing his son Beau as well, this idea of grief kind of being a common theme throughout his life.

  How did that shape his views and his leadership?

• Annie Linskey, The Wall Street Journal:

  Yes, it was very much — grief very much has been a theme that has run through his time in office and his presidency. It's something he talks a lot about.

  And when you think back to the 2020 presidential campaign, the country was in the midst of a pandemic. There were — tens of thousands of people were dying or died of COVID. And the president was able to connect to voters over grief. He was able to really feel their pain in a way and convince them and empathize with them and convince them that he was a person who could really lead the country out of this pandemic.

  Ultimately, when the pandemic ended — and his administration deserves a lot of credit for getting vaccines out the door — he struggled to connect with voters on sort of the next level, on the next thing. But it was his empathy that really swept him into office.

  And then one of his very final acts in office, I think, was steered by his connection to his family and his knowledge of the — and this deep pain and loss he has felt. And that is when he decided to pardon his son Hunter Biden.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And, Dan, we mentioned, obviously, he was vice president, second in command for eight years under Barack Obama, but he'd clearly long held presidential ambitions of his own.

  You covered that Democratic primary back in 1988, when he first ran for office, ran again in 2008 and then, of course, finally won in 2020. So for this man to reach that level, to win presidential office after all of those years, what did it mean and how did it inform how he held the role and holds the role?

• Dan Balz:

  You know, Amna, long before he ran for president, he was talked about as a presidential candidate.

  In the early and mid-'80s, it was clear that he had presidential ambitions. He may have arrived in the Senate with presidential ambitions. If he hadn't, it took him only a few hours to get them.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Dan Balz:

  Not uncommon for people in the Senate and people in public life. But, nonetheless, he had long wanted to be president.

  But I think, in 2020, he was determined to do it. For one reason, it was the brass ring that he had never quite captured. A second reason was, I think he did it because of Beau, that Beau had basically said — it's the title of his memoir: Promise me, dad, that you will stay in public life and perhaps run for president.

  And as he has said many times, it was Donald Trump and Charlottesville that finally persuaded him to do that. But he was ready to be president. I mean, he had long served in the Senate, eight years as vice president. He felt he was fully prepared. He felt he was the person to beat Donald Trump in 2020.

  And I think he came in with a sense of what he wanted to do, some of which he was able to do, a lot of which he wasn't quite able to do for a variety of reasons, some through his own missteps and failings, and some simply because no president ever gets to do everything they hope to do.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Well, Annie, pick up where Dan left off there.

  In terms of finally making it to the highest office in the land, where did you see Mr. Biden's biggest accomplishments come through in terms of what he prioritized, where he spent his political capital, and what's left undone?

• Annie Linskey:

  The first two years of his presidency was him and his team wrestling with members of Congress, going back and forth, and passing a legislation to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States, to fix roads and bridges, getting an infrastructure bill passed to usher in a new kind of green, clean economy, something that he's very proud of.

  So that was a major, major accomplishment for this White House. And when you turn to foreign policy, he did expand NATO. He led the efforts to sort of rebuild U.S. relations with other countries, with foreign countries.

  He really struggled to tell a story about what he was doing and what he wanted to do. And that struggle was in part because of his experience in the Senate, but in part some of his own deficiencies, and has — and the decline, his age-related decline, which has sort of been well-documented over the last few months, but really started much, much earlier than the White House at least has acknowledged.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And, Dan, this brings us now to where we are at the closing days of his time in office. As Annie mentioned, this is probably not the way in which he saw his career ending. He ended his bid for a second time, a second term in office just 100 days before the election, under pressure from his own party and others and those questions about his age.

  How do you look at this idea of legacy, of how people will remember his time in office?

• Dan Balz:

  It's complicated, as it is with most presidents.

  I think Annie has ticked through major accomplishments, which he will always be able to point to. I think the assembling of a coalition to defend Ukraine against the Russian invasion was a significant step forward and something for which he won a lot of praise overseas.

  But there were some deficiencies. One was in passing all of the legislation that they did in the first couple of years. That helped to trigger the inflation that came back to haunt the administration. And I think that they were not as cognizant of that as they might have been. He was slow to deal with the immigration issue, which cost the Democrats politically in the 2020 election.

  And I think this issue of whether he should have run for a second term or not will always be a question that will be debated about his legacy. You're right. This is not the way he wanted to end. He obviously has thought and I think continues to think that, had he run, this time around, he might have won and that would be a second Biden term.

  I think a lot of people question that, whether he would have done any better or perhaps worse than Vice President Harris. So it's mixed. And, as I say, he will be able to point to many things that he did which were positive, but there will always be some downsides to that presidency, and as they always are when somebody ends up as a one-term president.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Especially over five decades in public service as well.

• Dan Balz:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Dan Balz, Annie Linskey, my thanks to you both. Really appreciate your time.

• Dan Balz:

  Thank you.

• Annie Linskey:

  Thank you.