geoff: When Joe Biden stepped
into the oval office as
president on January 20, 2021
following his decades-long
career in public service, he was
perhaps better prepared and more
equipped than other presidents
in recent history to deal with
the ways of Washington and his
fellow world leaders.
"The atlantic's" Franklin foer
has examined president Biden's
first two years in office, which
he writes about in fascinating
detail in his new book, "The
last politician."
And Franklin joins me now.
Thank you for being with us.
Franklin: Thank you for having
me.
Geoff: In the prologue of the
book, you write that the
electorate in 2020 turned to Joe
Biden, that his victory was
ascribed to the fact that voters
wanted calm and decency and
competency, even a bit of
boredom after four years of the
trump administration.
You write that was not the view
that Joe Biden had of himself
and for his presidency.
What was his initial vision, and
how did it evolve?
Franklin: Joe Biden had not set
around his whole life wanting to
be president just to be a
placeholder.
He had grand and visions for
what he wanted to accomplish.
He had a massive social spending
program that he wanted to put in
place.
He wanted to redirect American
foreign policy so it was
oriented more to the challenges
of a rising China.
And he wanted to redirect a lot
of the old orthodoxies of
democratic party economics to
steer it in a different
direction, where it was warmer
to unions.
It took the problem of monopoly
more seriously.
It had some version of
industrial policy.
Geoff: You also recount the
untold timeline of the
Afghanistan withdrawal.
President trump set that
into motion with the Doha
agreement.
It was president Biden who
decided to honor that decision.
You're right he had a contrarian
faith in the righteousness of
his decision.
How did that affect the strategy
and execution of that
withdrawal?
Franklin: One of the most
interesting qualities of the
Biden presidency and his whole
career is he has a very
complicated relationship to
elites.
On the one hand, he craves their
respect and approval.
On the other hand, he does not
feel totally at home within the
elite.
He thinks to some extent that
they are constantly
underestimating him.
Biden, I think, believes he
possesses certain qualities that
allow him to be a contrarian.
On Afghanistan, he was a
contrarian for over a decade.
During the Obama administration,
he was calling for withdrawal.
I think that he felt the impulse
to get out so strongly, he was
so intent to some extent on
winning the bureaucratic wars
over Afghanistan, and so intent
on focusing on the strategic
redirection of American foreign
policy that he lost a bit of
track of the humanitarian
questions that ultimately came
to the fore and was so vivid in
those weeks in August of the
withdrawal.
Geoff: There's a ton of
reporting in this book about the
president's domestic legislative
achievements.
I want to talk about abortion
because Joe Biden's catholic
faith is central to how he views
the world.
Is that what accounted for what
his critics saw as his
flat-footed response to the
supreme court overturning roe V.
Wade?
Franklin: As a devoted catholic,
he has gotten complicated on his
feelings about abortion.
I think that Biden came from
this other era that the terms of
abortion were different.
I don't think he appreciated
initially the radicalization of
Dobbs and the way it would be
radically implemented
straightaway.
It took that 10-year-old girl
from Ohio who went to Indiana to
have to have an abortion in a
way -- and the way in which the
law fell down on her.
For Biden, that became
immorality tale -- a morality
tale that snapped everything in
place for him.
Whatever flat-footed miss,
whatever qualms he had at the
outset melted away.
I think he eventually came to
not just appreciate what Dobbs
would mean for women, but it
also came to appreciate the
political benefit for the
democratic party with the Dobbs
decision in a way which it took
a democratic base and rallied
them to the polls.
Geoff: What is the relationship
between president Biden and vice
president Kamala Harris?
Franklin: Their relationship was
forged on the job.
It comes with all the baggage
that Biden brought from the
Obama administration about his
own time sitting in that chair.
So, I think, Harris -- Kamala
Harris, for reasons having to do
with her own political sense of
self, struggled to find her way.
The truth is that Obama needed
Biden because he saw certain
holes in his own resume that he
thought Biden could fill.
Biden has a supreme sense of
self-confidence based on his
many years in Washington.
I think it was harder for him to
see the space for Kamala Harris
in the vice presidency.
While the relationship formally,
emotionally is a very healthy
one, on a practical matter, it
was harder for Harris to find
her legs.
I would also say that my boo
ends with the midterm elections
in 2022.
I think Harris has found a
greater sense of political
identity since my book closes
because of the abortion issue
where she's been the
administration's primary
spokesperson.
I think she has developed a more
coherent political identity in
the months that followed the
close of my book.
Geoff: Voters rain
overwhelmingly think president
Biden is too old to run for
president.
That was the latest finding in a
Wall Street journal poll this
week.
How was the white house planning
to turn his age, his
half-century of public service,
turn that into an asset?
Franklin: It is a strange
disconnect because in the course
of my reporting, I depict a
president who is deeply involved
in the intricacies of policy.
An extremely active
commander-in-chief.
He's got to find a way to
explain what he's done and
convey the sense of activity.
And I think you are correct in
saying they have not really
leaned into his age as an asset,
even though he was clearly
elected because he was an
experienced hand.
We're navigating a proxy war
with a major nuclear power.
Our relationship with China is
extremely tense.
The ways in which those things
can go off the rails.
His experience actually does
matter in navigating those
conflicts.
And he needs to show that it was
his legislative skills, his
political skills based on all of
those decades of experience that
yielded these accomplishments
that he can rack up on his side
of the ledger.
Geoff: The book is "The last
politician."
Its author is Franklin foer.
It is a triumph of reporting.
Congratulations.
Franklin: Thank you so much.
♪♪