In a new interview released Wednesday, President Biden insisted he could have been re-elected had he stayed in the race, but acknowledged he may not have had the energy to serve as president for another four years.
Mr. Biden, 82, who abandoned his bid for a second term in July under enormous pressure from Democrats panicked by his poor debate performance against former President Donald J. He claimed to be healthy enough to run the country. Finish your term.
“So far it’s been going really well,” he told USA Today. “But who knows what I’ll be like when I’m 86?”
That was exactly the issue many Democrats had been raising privately for months, until the issue exploded into public view during a televised debate in June. At the time, a frail-looking Mr. Biden struggled to finish sentences and at times appeared dazed and confused.
Until then, and after weeks of debates, Mr. Biden and his aides said he still believed he could defeat Mr. Trump, even though polls showed widespread doubts about his ability, including among Democrats. He claimed to have sufficient energy to Mr. Biden said he would have won even after his replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost to Mr. Trump.
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think it’s true,” Biden said in an interview. But when asked whether he was able to withstand the extraordinary burdens that come with the presidency until age 86, Biden, already the oldest president in U.S. history, acknowledged a doubt he rarely admits. “I don’t know,” he said.
“When Trump was running for reelection again, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him,” Biden said of the 2020 election, which he won. “But I also didn’t think I’d be president when I was 85 or 86. So we talked about passing the baton.”
Biden added: Who the hell knows? ”
Biden also said in the interview that he is considering granting preemptive pardons to some of Trump’s perceived enemies to protect them from the president-elect’s vowed “retribution.” He also admitted that. Those known to be under consideration include former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who led the response to the coronavirus pandemic. It will be done.
Biden said in a post-election meeting with Trump that he tried to dissuade him from pursuing his opponent.
“I tried to make it clear that there was no need to do that, but it was counterintuitive to his interests to go back and try to settle things,” Biden said. Mr. Trump did not say much about this. “He didn’t reinforce it. He basically just listened.”
Mr. Biden’s decision to run for re-election is one of the most consequential events of his presidency, and may have a significant impact on his accomplishments. He initially claimed he could serve as president into his mid-80s, backtracking on his 2020 promise to serve as a “bridge” to the next generation and preventing his party from grooming a successor early. .
By the time he dropped out, the party did not have time to mount a full competition as a candidate to replace him. Harris entered the nomination partially in default, but fell 1.5 percentage points short of the popular vote, with just 107 days left to launch a campaign against Trump in the general election. .
As a result, many Democrats have soured on Biden and blamed him for Trump’s return to power. “There is no question that our country would be better off if President Biden had decided not to run for re-election,” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet told the New York Times a few weeks after the election. I don’t think so,” he said, looking back. sentiments within the party.
Biden’s age and competency have been an issue throughout much of his tenure. Aides and allies who work closely with him say he is visibly aging in terms of appearance and ability to communicate his thoughts, yet he is still able to ask questions, process information, and make decisions. He has said for many years that he remains mentally sharp.
Like others his age, he sometimes has trouble calling out names and words, but that doesn’t affect his ability to make decisions and guide wisely, they said.
But his pace has stopped, his voice has weakened, and his frailty has increased, making it difficult for him to display his strength and command on the national stage. The USA Today interview itself also showed how the White House is trying to protect him from potentially upsetting encounters. This was the first time he had given an interview to a reporter from a major mainstream newspaper in his four years in office.
Unlike any president in history, he has never given gifts to reporters at newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, or New York Times during his tenure. Overall, Biden has given fewer interviews of any kind and held fewer press conferences than any president in recent decades.
Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington bureau chief who interviewed the newspaper at the White House on Sunday, said that for nearly an hour, he was “enthusiastic and talkative, but at times spoke so softly that you could hear his voice.” It’s difficult.”
He claimed that age was an asset to him. “I think the only advantage of being older is that I’ve known all of the world’s major leaders for a long time. So I had a perspective on each of them and their interests.” said Biden, who previously served as a senator for 36 years and as vice president for eight years. “So I think that’s helped us navigate some of the fundamental changes that are happening in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the Far East.”
During the interview, he expressed frustration with misinformation and Trump’s ability to lie without consequences. And he said he regrets how long it took for the roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects he funded to show the effects of his policies. But he expressed optimism that he would ultimately be remembered for his accomplishments.
“I hope history will tell me that I came into the office with a plan to restore our economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world,” Biden said. “That was my hope. I mean, who knows? And I hope that there will be a record that I acted honestly and with integrity and that I said what was on my mind.”
