After the Democrats' electoral defeat in November, Joe Biden “disappeared from the radar,” Politico reports. The website reached out to associates of the President of the United States, who admit that “it seems that Trump is already president.” They also pointed to the reasons for Biden's apparent “absence” and “reticence.”
“Biden appears to have left the Oval Office a few weeks ago,” writes Politico, citing interviews with about two dozen Democratic Party members, officials and former and current White House advisers. Over a month after the presidential election, the leader of the United States “disappeared from the radar”, appearing in public mainly with prepared statements and avoiding journalists' questions, the portal reported. Joe Biden So far, he has not followed in the footsteps of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who organized a post-election press conference before the end of their terms.
“Trump seems to be already president.”
The portal's interlocutors suggest that Biden and his administration show “little interest” in helping to outline the future of Democrats after the inauguration Donald Trump. “Biden has focused much of his aides' energy on managing the transition of power and tackling several final issues aimed at enhancing his legacy,” it said.
“His approach to his last weeks on the job was very cavalier and selfish,” said a former White House official who was not named by Politico. “It seems like Trump is already president,” another Democrat said. Politico also reports that at the end of Biden's term, White House officials are devoting much of their time to “the country's foreign entanglements” in war in Ukraine and in the Middle East because, they fear, the future administration will “take both conflicts in a completely different direction.”
Joe Biden at the White House, December 8, 2024.PAP/EPA/RON SACHS / POOL
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“Everything he has done over the last year has damaged the party.”
Recently, the US president has avoided questions about what went wrong in the run-up to the presidential elections and where Democrats should be heading now. Some Biden aides have acknowledged that he is absent from broad discussions about Trump's presidency and the future of the Democratic Party. They pointed to two main reasons for the president's reticence: Biden's own belief that “few want to listen to him” and the feeling that he “owes little to the party that unceremoniously ousted him.”
Some of Politico's interlocutors actually talk about “little demand to listen to the president” before the political one pension. “Few now demand his return,” we read. – Everything he has done over the last year has damaged the party – said a democrat who wished to remain anonymous.
Donald Trump with Joe Biden in the Oval OfficePAP/EPA/AL DRAGO / POOL
Biden in the “transition phase”
Congressman Glenn Ivey said that the lack of involvement of outgoing presidents in activities on behalf of their own parties is “kind of a tradition” and Biden “needs to be careful.” “In what's called the transition phase, the president and vice president usually mostly thank the team, thank the staff,” says Donna Brazile, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Some of Biden's associates also said in an interview with Politico that he must be “careful” about what he says about Trump to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. White House spokesman Andrew Bates, however, defends the incumbent president, recalling that last month he criticized Trump's agenda, including his plans to raise tariffs.
Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, 2025.
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Main photo source: PAP/EPA/RON SACHS / POOL