Tarnished legacy? How Biden’s age and refusal to pass torch earlier hang over his exit
WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden assured Americans throughout his 2024 reelection campaign he was eager and able to serve for four more years, even though it would have meant holding the world's most powerful job until he was 86 years old.
But now ‒ just a few days before he leaves office and President-elect Donald Trump takes over the White House ‒ he's not so sure he would have had the vigor.
"I don't know," Biden told Paste BN earlier this month in an exclusive interview. "When Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton.
"Who the hell knows?" the 82-year-old president added. "So far, so good. But who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old?"
Biden's public admission that time is catching up with him is now very much part of the narrative and debate over his legacy: More than a half-century in Washington, eight years as the vice president, four as the commander in chief, yet like an aging athlete, unsure when to hang it up.
His decision to run for reelection in 2024 ‒ ignoring well-documented concerns among voters and his party about his age and ability to serve through January 2029 ‒ is central to the discussion of a legacy that's being judged less by legislative achievements and more by his refusal for "passing the baton" earlier.
Some Democrats blame Biden’s initial decision to run for a second term – only to end his campaign 107 days before the election – for helping pave the way to Trump’s return to power.
His determination exposed a diminished president to the American people during a disastrous June debate performance against Trump that showed him struggle to piece together answers. When he finally dropped out one month later amid pressure from top Democrats, he left his vice president, Kamala Harris, less than four months to mount a campaign against Trump.
"It certainly would have been better for the Democratic nominee if he had decided earlier. No question about it," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. "Kamala Harris was handicapped by the lack of sufficient time to build her case."
'The dark moment of the Biden presidency'
The turning point in Biden's calculus to run again came when Democrats exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterm elections and thwarted a widely predicted midterm "red wave" for Republicans. Not only did House Democrats lose vastly fewer seats than projected in the House that cycle, the party retained power in the Senate – despite Biden's low approval ratings.
Biden felt vindicated at the time and took delight proving his skeptics wrong, convinced the results spoke to quiet popularity for his polices – and himself ‒ that pundits were missing.
"Watch me," Biden told reporters the day after the midterms in a message to the two-thirds of voters who in exit polls said they didn't want him to seek reelection. It was a strong hint at the formal reelection announcement that would come months later in April 2023.
"The dark moment of the Biden presidency occurred when he misread his mandate after the Democrats outperformed in the midterm elections of 2022," said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and professor of history at Rice University. He said Biden could have "built the bench of the Democratic Party" but instead "reneged on his pledge" to be a transition president.
"Biden's now going down as a failed presidency," Brinkley added, pointing to Democrats winning millions fewer votes in 2024 than in Biden's first run in 2020. "He didn't energize the nation."
What Biden perceived as a victory for his agenda in the midterms, political experts now say might have been the result of the immediate enthusiasm infused into the party just months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a lackluster field of Republican Senate candidates, and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol being fresher on the minds of voters than it was in 2024. Midterm elections historically energize the bases of the nation's major political parties but have smaller turnout than presidential races.
Signals from the president and the White House following the 2022 midterms about Biden's reelection intentions effectively cleared the field from other viable Democrats entering the primary race. Had Biden bowed out, it's a list that could have included the party's crop of governors like Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, in addition to Harris.
"In retrospect, yeah," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said on Democrats being better off had Biden passed the torch earlier. "But retrospect ‒ what does that mean? This was a very close race."
Still, McGovern added, "Had we had a primary, and Harris won that primary, she would have been a stronger candidate. She would have had more time to be able to not only introduce herself to the American people, but to combat all the bull--- that Trump was throwing out there."
Biden's top aides reject the notion that the president's decision to run, and then to retreat, paved the way for Trump's victory.
"The assumption that somehow the Democrat would have won had it not been for the last year is just wrong," said a former Biden senior adviser who requested anonymity to speak candidly. "People in this country were unhappy, and they were unhappy about inflation."
The same senior adviser said other Democrats who didn't want Biden to run again could have stepped up. "Any of those Democrats who felt that way could have run against him, banded together to get someone into the process."
But the most viable party challenger Biden attracted was a long shot: then-Rep. Dean Phillips, a 55-year-old congressman from Minnesota who was effusive in praise of Biden's presidency but argued it was time for new Democratic voices. Phillips was roundly mocked by the party's establishment for taking on Biden and ended his bid early in the nomination process.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a 35-year-old progressive Democrat who stood behind Biden's reelection bid, countered the postelection second-guessing, noting the party's elite was publicly behind his decision to run again.
"There is an entire party establishment here," said Ocasio-Cortez, "that was also supportive with that at the time as well."
Biden says he would have beaten Trump. Most Democrats don't co-sign.
Since entering the White House four years ago, Biden has displayed visible signs of aging. His gait became stiffer. He often spoke softly. And his willingness to take questions from reporters became few and far between.
Yet Biden is convinced he could have defeated Trump had he stayed in. "It's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling," Biden said during the exclusive interview with Paste BN on whether he could have beaten Trump.
Responding to a question from a reporter last Friday, Biden said he doesn't regret initially running for reelection.
"I think I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump. And I think Kamala could have beaten Trump," Biden said. "I thought it was important to unify the party. And when the party was worried about whether or not I was going to be able to move ‒ even though I thought I could win again ‒ I thought it was better to unify the party."
Biden's assessment has raised eyebrows. Trump led Biden throughout the campaign in both national and battleground state polls. After Biden's exit, Harris quickly erased Trump's sizable polling leads despite ultimately losing all seven closely contested swing states.
Most Democrats are staying away from Biden's postelection hypothetical that he could have defeated Trump.
“We’re looking forward not backward," House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said last week when asked whether he agrees with Biden.
In his waning days in office, Biden and his allies have tried to assert a legacy defined by signature laws Biden pushed through in his first term ‒ overcoming a razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate ‒ to unleash historic infrastructure spending, a resurgence of clean-energy factories and investments in the microchip industry to catch up to China. Biden calls it the "most significant investment in America since the New Deal."
Biden has also touted his record "restoring the economy" after assuming office during a global pandemic, restoring the nation's global alliances and leading international support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion and war.
"On substance, there's no Democrat outside of Lyndon Johnson who was more productive," said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a close Biden confidant. "You even talk about how successful (Barack) Obama was, how successful Bill Clinton was. I don't think, pound for pound, any one of them legislatively made it up to Joe Biden's production. That's why I believe history is going to be so kind to him."
Clyburn, whose endorsement in the 2020 Democratic primary helped steer Biden's comeback, said he doesn't believe Biden's reluctance to pass the torch to a new nominee will have much consequence on how history will view him.
"People look at his age and look at the age of the guy who's about to take the office," Clyburn said of the 78-year-old Trump, now the oldest person ever elected president, "and ask, 'What's the difference?'"
Clyburn attributed Biden's misspeaks and gaffes to the president's lifelong battle with stuttering. He blamed the media for fixating on it. And unlike some of his Democratic colleagues, Clyburn said he questioned whether Biden should have even bowed out to hand the nomination to Harris.
"I don't think he should have gotten out before he did. And a lot of us wonder whether he should have gotten out at all," said Clyburn, who, like Biden, believes the president could have defeated Trump had he stayed in the race.
Will Biden's legacy change over time?
Biden leaves office with a mixed legacy, said biographer Chris Whipple, author of "The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”
“When he came into office, he was facing the most daunting challenges since FDR’s time – an economy in free fall, a once-in-a-century pandemic, global warming, racial injustice and then an invasion of a democracy in Europe,” Whipple said. “He gets really, really strong marks on his handling of the economy. He pulled it out of a free fall. He guided the country out of the pandemic. And I think he's got a pretty extraordinary record of passing bipartisan legislation in a 50-50 Congress.”
On the other hand, he said, Biden failed to adequately address concerns about migration at the U.S.-Mexico border and misjudged the impact of inflation on working-class Americans.
And Biden’s unwillingness to end his bid for a second term until just four months before the election will impact the way many Americans remember him, Whipple added. He attributed Biden's determination to run again to a mindset of long feeling counted out and underestimated.
“Biden's stubborn refusal to face the reality that he was too old, A, to run for reelection and then, B, to govern for a second term, is going to haunt him,” he said, adding that Democrats' performance in the 2022 midterms "reinforced this delusion that he could run and win and serve a second term."
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., another close Biden ally, suggested Biden's legacy will improve over time. Coons cited President Harry S. Truman, who he said was viewed negatively by the public immediately after leaving office in January 1953 but whose reviews changed "as Americans have focused on the substance of his accomplishments."
"I think there will be different historical assessments right after the end of his presidency and a decade and two or three from now," Coons said of Biden, who he said will be remembered as a president who "never forgot where he came from, fought tirelessly for the middle class, worked across the aisle and delivered significant, consequential legislative results."
Coons said Democrats' 2022 midterms performance "gave a sense of optimism to everyone who was looking at running either for reelection or running for the first time." But he also pointed to difficulties for incumbent parties in elections throughout the world over the past year.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said two decades from now, Biden will be ranked as one of the top 10 presidents of all time.
"We rarely talk about presidential campaigns," Daschle said of sizing up past presidents. "We take a look at what they accomplished over the time they were in office."
Parallels to Jimmy Carter
Biden's admirers see a tragic ending to his presidency. He takes enormous pride as the person who defeated Trump ‒ who advisers still note is the only Democrat to do so ‒ yet he's now being replaced by him. Biden warned of Trump being a threat to democracy and called the battle against Trumpism a "fight for the soul of the nation."
But he will have to watch on Monday as Trump is sworn in as the 47th president.
"One of his great successes was he saved us from a second Trump term, and then, because of his decision to run for reelection, he's partially responsible for having the second Trump term," said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. "And the second Trump term, I think, is going to be abominable."
As fate would have it, Biden last week eulogized President Jimmy Carter ‒ the last one-term Democratic president ‒ whose presidency is the one most often compared to Biden's. Carter, who died at 100 and left a postpresidential legacy of volunteerism, was also saddled with high inflation and unrest in the Middle East.
"To young people, to anyone in search of meaning and purpose, study the power of Jimmy Carter's example," Biden said.
But Brinkley said the last year of Biden's presidency ‒ which included the controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden ‒ has undermined the image Biden had cultivated.
"What he had going for him was that it seemed public service and 'state of democracy' were his mantras, and in the end, it starts looking that it was just another selfish politician," said Brinkley, who has written books about Carter, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and other presidents.
Brinkley listed off Carter's defining moments: brokering the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, opening diplomatic relations with China, conservation efforts in Alaska, doubling the national parks system, creating the Departments of Education and Energy, and pushing a human rights campaign in his foreign policy.
"You say the name Jimmy Carter, you think human rights," Brinkley said. "And when you hear Joe Biden in his 80s, what do you think? The answer becomes he stayed too long."
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.