Biden will leave the White House with little fanfare

On December 26, 2024By Littum

Editor’s note: President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on federal death row to life in prison.

President Biden is poised to leave the White House with little fanfare.

Democrats are eager to turn the page on a bad year in which they lost again to President-elect Trump, who has absorbed much of the limelight long before taking office for a second term.

Biden, for his part, has embarked on several major foreign trips since the election. He also pardoned his son, is working to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, is increasing aid to Ukraine and is working the holiday circuit while giving speeches in and around Washington.

He also made waves just before Christmas by announcing that he was commuting the sentences of 37 people serving time on federal death row.

But the president’s public presence barely registers, while Trump’s cascade of announcements about his second cabinet, a network television interview and his first press conference since winning the election at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida fill the media mood.

That is, except that Trump and his allies injected themselves into fraught government funding negotiations at the end of the year, with Biden and the White House largely silent. That chorus was instead largely led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.).

Republicans said Biden’s absence from big moments is par for the course — in addition to avoiding the press at almost all costs.

“He’s been missing for a long time. We saw him go to Africa, didn’t take any questions that anyone could see, and was largely shielded from the press. We know he’s going to Italy, probably the media will have the same amount of access,” said GOP strategist Doug Heye.

Democrats have also done little to bolster the leader of their party, instead expressing expectation that Biden will leave office, even if they don’t like who comes next.

“There’s just such a great deal of disappointment in the way this presidency is ending. It’s almost like a resignation at this point,” said one Democratic lobbyist.

“Among Democrats, no one is looking forward to Donald Trump becoming president, but everyone is ready for the Biden presidency to end.”

Jon Favreau, a former President Obama speechwriter, said Trump’s press conference highlighted a perception that Biden was absent from the public stage — despite Biden himself giving a speech at the Labor Department as Trump announced a $100 billion investment from SoftBank.

“It was more or less a standard presidential policy announcement, with the biggest difference being: Trump isn’t president yet. A fact that’s getting easier and easier to forget as Joe Biden seems to fade from the public scene as his tenure winds down ends,” Favreau said on his “Pod Save America” podcast.

Favreau and his co-hosts also noted Trump’s attendance at the Army-Navy game earlier in December, pointing out that Biden had never attended. Trump once again put himself in the media spotlight, in part because of the entourage he had, including his challenger for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.

Some Democrats said they are not bothered by Trump stealing the spotlight in the past month, noting that he is not behaving inappropriately and appears more focused than eight years ago.

Others note that Obama stole the media spotlight in 2008 when he was first elected when former President George W. Bush moved out of the White House.

The fact that Trump is acting like a president before he’s officially in office, a longtime Democratic donor and bundler called more “a media issue” than an actual issue.

“I haven’t seen much of anything he’s done that’s reprehensible. He’s getting people to invest in the United States, that’s a good thing. He’s meeting with foreign leaders. When other people win elections, they often have conversations with foreign managers. I’m sure the conversations aren’t too different in person than on the phone,” the source said. since.”

Democratic supporters are left upset about Biden’s remaining term.

“I think people, including probably a lot of people in the White House, are just ready for it to be over. The administration accomplished a lot, but the most important thing was to win, and we didn’t win,” the longtime Democratic donor added and bundles.

The White House continues to work behind the scenes on two major foreign fronts when it comes to increasing aid to Ukraine and trying to reach a ceasefire agreement to end the fighting in Gaza.

But Trump has again gained more attention for some of the meetings he has with foreign leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after threatening tariffs while joking that he would make Canada the 51st state.

Adam Abrams, an Obama White House communications official, argued that Biden can still gain attention in the final days of the presidency to define his legacy on his terms if he chooses to do so using his bully pulpit.

“President Biden can and will make full use of the bully pulpit to define his historic legacy and describe all that he has accomplished, the remarkable consistency of his values, and the breadth of his accomplishments. After all, as president, he needs not competing for media or public attention – he can command it,” said Abrams, partner at Seven Letter.

“As the frenzy continues with the Trump transition and the year-end funding battle on Capitol Hill, President Biden is actively strengthening his record by using the final stretch to make progress on his core priorities,” Abrams said.

Biden has attracted such attention – albeit not for the most positive reasons.

He caused an uproar among Democrats again when he announced that he would pardon his son Hunter Biden after insisting for months that he would not do so.

The move left Democrats “disgusted” and “totally” outraged with Biden World in general, sources told The Hill.

That was on top of the feelings many Democrats already had about Biden, which was that he should have chosen not to run for re-election or should have left the 2024 race earlier; Vice President Harris only had about 100 days to run against Trump before losing to him decisively.

Democrats generally had a troubling year between losing the White House, the Senate and not flipping the House.

Ivan Zapien, a former Democratic National Committee official, described the end-of-year sentiment as less centered on Biden and more about disappointment in general among Democrats.

“Losing is not fun, and I think you don’t see fun playing out across the spectrum of the Democratic Party,” Zapien said. “I wouldn’t call it Biden fatigue — it’s more of a, ‘well that’s shit, rest up for the next one’ feeling.”

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