Joe Biden rose to the presidency with a promise to heal a divided nation, strengthen his party, and protect democracy. Yet, as the 82-year-old nears the end of his time in office, the country remains fractured, his party is in disarray, and Americans are questioning the integrity of the self-proclaimed institutionalist, particularly regarding his respect for the rule of law.
Many Democrats are blaming Biden for the White House potentially slipping back into Donald Trump’s hands, criticizing him for overstaying his welcome and being embroiled in controversy after pardoning his son. Adding to the frustration, Biden recently expressed doubts about his ability to serve another term, despite previously dismissing voter concerns about his age as he campaigned for re-election.
Biden’s relationship with his party has also soured. Following the November elections, he reportedly mused privately about pardoning Trump as a grand gesture, though it’s unclear whether he seriously considered it. A White House official denied that any formal discussions took place. Meanwhile, Biden has distanced himself from some of his closest political allies.
The end of his presidency is shaping up to be an unremarkable conclusion to a five-decade political career.
“The Joe Biden story is one of the great tragedies of American politics,” said veteran Democratic strategist James Carville. “He should be enjoying a well-deserved retirement, and instead, he’s not. It’s hard to blame anyone but him.”
Biden has indicated plans to write another book, perhaps to tell his side of his presidency’s arc and its end. Despite polling in 2023 showing that most Democrats didn’t want him to seek re-election, he pressed forward, with the support of party insiders. His late-stage departure from the campaign in July, after a disastrous debate that raised questions about his mental acuity, paved the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to take the lead with little time to mount a viable challenge against Trump.
Throughout his presidency, Biden has granted fewer interviews than his predecessors, and he will end his term the same way: without holding a traditional final news conference.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates defended Biden’s record, emphasizing his many interviews and informal Q&A sessions with reporters.
Inside the White House, the mood has been described as “morose.” Biden feels he has achieved significant accomplishments that the public fails to recognize. Privately, he has shifted between melancholy, resignation, frustration, and nostalgia as he reflects on his legacy, according to two people close to him.
“He’s totally dejected, and the people around him are, as well,” said one close associate. Another White House official explained that the gloomy atmosphere was partly due to Trump’s potential return, though they noted that Biden’s staff cheered enthusiastically when he made a surprise appearance at a staff event earlier this week.
Other White House aides are holding their emotions in check, waiting for Biden’s official departure.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said one official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “We’re still working until the very last minute. It’ll feel real once we’re actually done.”
A uniter’s many fractured friendships
Once seen as the elder statesman poised to bridge the gap to a new generation of leadership, Biden leaves office with a web of fractured relationships. He is now estranged from some of his former closest allies. Alongside First Lady Jill Biden, he holds a quiet but simmering resentment toward former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and several ex-aides, including Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn. Biden believes these individuals either let him down or played a role in pushing him out of the 2024 race, according to multiple sources close to him.
Biden has not spoken to Dunn, a former top adviser who was one of the few prominent Democrats willing to support him in a 2016 challenge to Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination, for months. Dunn left the White House in the summer, following the fallout from Biden’s lackluster June debate performance.
His relationship with Bauer, his longtime personal lawyer (and husband to Dunn), has also soured since that debate, with tensions surrounding the criminal trials of Biden’s son, Hunter. Neither Bauer nor Dunn attended a large black-tie dinner the Bidens hosted in November to thank longtime supporters, and Bauer will no longer represent Biden once he exits the presidency, according to sources familiar with the decision.
When asked about the decline in relations with Dunn and Bauer, a Biden aide commented, “Anita and Bob are well regarded and loyal to the president.”
Biden and Pelosi have crossed paths at social events since she pushed him to end his campaign in July, but there have been no meaningful conversations between them, a Pelosi aide confirmed.
“That relationship is permanently damaged,” said a person close to Biden.
Although Biden has not directly expressed his frustrations with Obama, a person familiar with their conversations indicated a growing distance. One former top Obama aide, who publicly urged Biden to drop out after the June debate, recently pointed out that while Biden named aircraft carriers after former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he has yet to honor Obama in a similar fashion.
“Barack H. Obama did not get a f—ing personnel carrier named after him,” Ben Rhodes remarked on the “Pod Save The World” podcast.
Before leaving office, Obama surprised Biden by presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in an emotional White House ceremony.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded to questions about Biden’s strained relationships with Pelosi and Obama, stating, “President Biden’s focus is squarely on making as big of a difference as he can in the lives of American families — not events from the campaign.”
Family drama crashes into the White House
Biden broke his promise to uphold the norms he claimed were crucial to the nation’s stability when he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, on federal gun and tax charges. The president attributed the prosecution to “raw politics,” arguing it had “infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice,” echoing the rhetoric often used by Trump.
Biden was taken aback and frustrated by the criticism from fellow Democrats regarding the pardon, according to several people close to him. Dunn was one of those who publicly denounced the decision.
Throughout his presidency, Biden found himself caught between the competing interests of his inner circle at the White House and his family. At times, his family felt the president wasn’t being well-served by his advisers, including Dunn, former top aide and campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, and longtime confidants Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon. This tension became especially pronounced as the 2024 campaign intensified, with Biden’s approval ratings slipping and Trump gaining ground among voters.
Biden didn’t make changes to his team until after he exited the 2024 race. In the weeks and months following that painful decision, tensions between some of his family members and his closest aides deepened.
At times, the resentment flowed in both directions. Dunn and Bauer felt blindsided by their abrupt removal from the president’s inner circle, and they blamed two Biden family members in particular for their ousting — Hunter Biden and Jill Biden.
The family drama could persist into the next administration. Some members of Biden’s staff are preparing for potential congressional investigations into Hunter Biden’s pardon and allegations, which the White House has denied, that administration officials concealed the extent of Biden’s mental decline.
The unsung hero
Biden has argued that his administration set the country on a path toward long-term economic success by passing significant legislation through Congress—despite the fact that many Americans may not yet feel its effects. He also views rallying U.S. allies around Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion as a key foreign policy success.
In a major development on Wednesday, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal after 15 months of devastating conflict in the Gaza Strip, including the release of hostages taken in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. Biden had been working for months to broker a ceasefire, but now shares some of the credit with Trump, as their two teams collaborated on the negotiations that led to the agreement.
When reporters asked Biden at a news conference on Wednesday whether he or Trump deserved credit for the ceasefire, Biden responded with a smile: “Is that a joke?”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates defended Biden’s record, stating, “President Biden put his unique qualification and his whole heart into delivering for the American people, and the results are the strongest record of any modern administration.”
Critics have continually faulted Biden for loosening border policies early in his term, which led to a surge in illegal crossings. Although he later strengthened border controls, public opinion had already shifted against him.
Some Democrats argue that Biden missed an opportunity to better address economic concerns, with veteran Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco suggesting he should have focused more on criticizing corporate greed rather than trying to convince the public that the economy was doing better than it seemed.
“There was always this internal struggle from the day he walked into the White House: Was he Joe from Scranton, the populist, union guy? Or is he Joe the senator from Delaware, which is corporate friendly?” Giangreco said. “He could never make up his mind who he was. If he had been Joe from Scranton from day one and stayed Joe from Scranton from day one, it might have been a different outcome.”
Biden has also faced the political consequences of pandemic-era policies carried over from the previous two administrations, according to political science professor Lynn Vavreck. Many voters became accustomed to the subsidies provided by the Trump and Biden administrations, only to see prices rise once those subsidies ended—compounding the economic frustration.
“They believed that they were better off financially during the Trump presidency,” Vavreck said. “That is probably true for very, very many people because of those government stimulus payments and all of the support for aid programs.”
Yet, prominent Democratic donor John Morgan believes Biden has cause to feel frustrated by the lack of recognition for his presidency, pointing to massive infrastructure investments, a booming stock market, low unemployment, and his successful handling of the pandemic.
“Objectively, I believe it was a great presidency. You know they believe it. You can hear it in the president’s voice,” Morgan said. “You look at all the statistics and it’s like: ‘Why aren’t you all carrying me on your shoulders?’”
Despite these accomplishments, Biden’s approval ratings have remained low. A CNN poll released on Wednesday shows his approval at just 36%. Biden is set to leave office with this dismal rating, and, according to two people close to him, he is particularly stung by the lack of improvement in his public standing.
In an alternate scenario, had Biden stepped aside as the Democratic nominee in 2023, he would likely have received a wave of praise in his final months, cutting ribbons at events and possibly raising millions for a policy center in his name, according to political strategist James Carville.
“Joe Biden had many successful acts in his life. Unfortunately, you get remembered for your last act,” Carville said. “Right now, he’s remembered as the guy who stayed too long.”
