The Highs and Lows of Biden’s Presidency
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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. So Galen, is it chilly and chilly? Chilly and chilly? No, it's hot. It is. Oh yeah, because it's summer because that's how planets work.

Hello and welcome to the 548 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. Thank you to Nathaniel for filling in for me on Monday. I'm back from vacation, fresh off, not checking my push notifications for two weeks. And actually, I'm going to be doing a little bit of a podcast.

Actually not having cell service for much of it either. I was trekking with my dad in Patagonia, where the mountain air and glacial waters totally cleansed my brain of the election year. In fact, it was so effective that I've actually forgotten the last four years in their entirety. So today, my colleagues are going to have to jog my memory as we try to assess what President Joe Biden's legacy will be.

I'm only partway joking here. I'll say it feels good to be back, and I hope that all of our listeners had a restful holiday season. In just a few days, President Trump will return to the Oval Office. And before we dive into inauguration and the first 100 days, we thought it was a good time to take a long, hard look at Biden's

four-year tenure. He presided over a pretty tumultuous period, a messy post-pandemic economy, rising political violence, and foreign wars. And I should note here that as we sit down to record on Wednesday, there's news of a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. So what were the highs? What were the lows? And how do Americans think he handled all of it?

Joining me to discuss is senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel. Hi, Galen. Welcome back. Thank you so much. Also here with us is senior researcher Mary Radcliffe. Welcome, Mary. Hi, Galen. I hope you had a restful vacation. I did. I did. There's nothing like mountain air, as I mentioned, to really wipe away a whole year of stress. As far as Biden's legacy is concerned, for me, it's...

always thinking that I was about to get a summer vacation, but then another shoe dropping and having to rush back to the podcast, whether it was a disastrous debate performance or him dropping out of the election altogether. Um, that will be his legacy for me. I finally got that vacation. I was hoping for all throughout June and July. So, and you went to somewhere where it's summer and I went to somewhere where it's summer, although not that warm in Patagonia, I should say. Uh,

But before we get to Biden's legacy, I want to begin briefly with the Los Angeles wildfires. A series of fires have been burning in the greater L.A. area for over a week, and it's shaping up to be one of the most deadly and damaging wildfire events in California's history. First of all, my heart goes out to everyone affected. It's a crisis that's still ongoing, and we're thinking about everyone's safety.

Nathaniel, you wrote a piece for the website, and I know these fires took place in some pretty dense residential areas. And as a result, they're shaping up to be one of the most expensive natural disasters of any kind. So can you tell me a little bit about that?

why that is and where these sort of estimates come from? Yeah. So I think like a lot of people, I was watching news of the wildfires and just, you know, kind of in shock about it. But when I dug into the numbers for this article, it was really honestly even more sobering just to kind of

see it in perspective because we hear these numbers about how many acres have been burned or how many lives have been lost, but seeing them in context is really quite startling. So like you mentioned, they are ongoing, unfortunately. And so these numbers, unfortunately, will probably rise.

But as it is right now, these are a couple of fires. It was several fires over the Los Angeles area. There are two in particular, the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire that have caused by far the most damage. And together, those two have killed 25 people so far and destroyed over 12,000 structures. And so...

By number of deaths, that would be the third deadliest wildfire in California history already. And then by number of structures, it's the second most destructive already. In terms of the financial impact, right, like you mentioned, like wildfires do typically happen in less dense areas, right? They'll happen in forests, obviously.

And here you have these forests that are right abutting this very densely populated city of Los Angeles. And a lot of the neighborhoods that have been destroyed are also like very wealthy. And obviously people know about the high cost of living in California. So as a result, a couple of kind of insurance estimators, so places like Moody's and a place called Aon have already said that they think that this is going to be the

most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. Now, wildfires typically aren't as expensive as, say, hurricanes, the different damage that hurricanes can cause, but that's still significant. There was one estimate that was put out by AccuWeather that estimated that it could be up to $275 billion in damage. But that one, I think that's a bit of an overestimate because they account for a lot of things, kind of

third and fourth order effects like the impact on, like lost tourism dollars from the after effects of the fire rather than literally just the cleanup costs.

And so if you go by official estimates from the U.S. government, AccuWeather estimates have tended to be something like four times too high in the past or at least four times higher than the methodology that the U.S. government uses. Still, it looks quite likely this is going to be far surpassed the $30 billion that the 2018 wildfires caused, which was previously the most expensive wildfire in history.

And as a result, California is going to be needing assistance from the federal government. And there's been reporting from Capitol Hill that Speaker Johnson discussed tying wildfire aid to the debt limit. How has that been received among members of Congress, Mary?

I mean, you're getting predictable responses to that from members of Congress. Democrats are really pushing back on tying the disaster relief to anything. They want to just pass clean disaster relief. You've seen some Republicans, especially Republicans from California, Doug LaMalfa, for example, saying that, you know, if that's the way to get it done, that's the way we're going to have to get it done because we really need that money. Yeah.

And this is not the first time that disaster relief comes attached to some other piece of legislation. Disaster relief for North Carolina, for example, was attached to the continuing resolution to fund the government in December. So this is, I think, sort of par for the course politics on the Hill. Yeah.

And sort of when it comes to par for the course politics, when disasters like this happen, there's often also a discussion around the impact of climate change. And so pollsters have been out in the field asking Americans about

about what they think, whether this is a result of climate change, whether it's more likely because of climate change. I should say that we have had somewhat rigorous discussions in the past on this podcast about the connection between wildfires and climate change. And they're actually one of the hardest natural disasters to connect to climate change because as people know who study wildfires, if you are that person listening to this podcast, wildfires have happened

for a very long time. And one of the problems now is that people are increasingly building their homes in areas where wildfires happen. And in being more effective at preventing wildfires, it means that there's more and more brush on the ground to actually burn when the wildfires do happen. So it can be a difficult relationship between

between what humans are doing in terms of where they're deciding to live and how they are actually preventing fires so that we don't necessarily have those regular cyclical burns that we used to. But nonetheless,

It's pretty clear to folks that temperatures are getting hotter, right, Mary? Well, yes, definitely. So a YouGov economist survey that came out today had 60 percent of Americans saying that the world's climate is changing as a result of human activity. So definitely people are seeing this. And when it comes to the wildfires in California, we've had a couple of surveys that asked Americans if they thought climate change was a factor in those fires. We've had polls from Emerson, from YouGov, and again, YouGov economist today, and

In all of those surveys, slight majorities, not significant majorities, but slight majorities of Americans do think that climate change was a factor in these fires. Of course, you are getting a predictable partisan split here among Democrats. We have something like 87 percent in all of these surveys are saying that climate change was a factor among Republicans. It's down in the 40s.

What I thought was also really interesting in the YouGov Economist survey today is when they asked about climate change being a factor in the wildfires, they break it down into categories. Is it entirely responsible for this, mostly responsible, somewhat responsible, or not a factor at all?

What's interesting to me about that breakdown is very few people seem to be willing to say, yes, this is entirely climate change. This is the whole thing. Among Democrats, you see people saying that climate change was mostly responsible. And among Republicans, those who think that climate change was a factor are more likely to say it was somewhat responsible. So the degree to which people are willing to attribute this particular disaster to climate change sort of varies here. However,

There was also a question today in this Economist survey about whether people think that they will feel the effects of climate change in their lifetime. And on that question,

across the political spectrum, Democrats, independents and Republicans, pluralities say yes in all categories, majorities for Democrats, independents and a plurality for Republicans. So even though Republicans aren't quite willing to say, yes, these fires were a result of climate change, they are willing to say that climate change is probably going to affect their lives. Yeah. And I mean, beyond just this fire, I think

A lot of people know that we just experienced the hottest year on record after a hottest year on record. And so people are getting a lot of information, whether it's about hurricanes or floods or wildfires or whatnot about a changing climate. Let's wrap up.

on sort of how people think the government is doing in terms of its response. And there's California's response and the federal government's response. At this very moment, both of those are democratically controlled, although by Tuesday, one of those will be Republican-controlled. And it's worth saying here that because Kamala Harris lost the election,

Governor of California Gavin Newsom probably sees himself as one of the likelier people to be the next Democratic nominee. I don't know if that's true, but at least he sees himself that way. So what are we getting in terms of a sense of how Californians or even Americans are viewing the response?

So in the Emerson College survey from last week, they asked Americans if they approved or disapproved of Newsom's handling of the wildfire response in California. His approval was underwater by 11 points, 29 to 40. But that's a significant number of people that don't have an opinion or are neutral on his handling of the fire. Frankly, I don't know that I would expect

I expect Americans overall to have like strong opinions about Newsom's handling of a disaster that they're pretty far away from. I think that's probably going to be something we want to hear from Californians on who are actually having to deal with this. And of course, there's not going to be any surveys running in California in the middle of a huge natural disaster. So I think it's a wait and see.

Yeah, I mean, I've written and we've talked on the podcast before about how natural disasters can affect the approval ratings of politicians who are kind of tasked with responding to them. And we found that basically voters are pretty rational about it. If they perceive the politician has done a good job, it can really help someone's approval ratings. So think about Chris Christie after Superstorm Sandy in 2012, I think it was.

if they are seen as handling it badly, they will turn on the politicians. So the canonical example of this is George W. Bush with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And so I think it is still early days, probably. You've seen a fair amount of criticism of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was out of the country when the wildfires started. You've seen some criticism of Newsom, although I think that's mostly been from Republicans. So I think that might be, although, you know, we saw this poll, which

isn't necessarily good news for him. So I think we do have to wait and see how those things shake out. But this is absolutely the type of thing that could have an impact on those politicians favorability ratings. Their bass is up for reelection in 2026. Gavin Newsom, like you mentioned, right on for president. And this could end up being a big part of his either his talking points or his opponents talking points come that campaign. All right. Well, speaking of how politicians are viewed, let's move on and talk about Joe Biden's legacy.

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Four years is a long time, and any presidential administration has its highs and lows and also just weird, memorable moments. Presidential historians will spend decades debating Biden's legacy, beginning in earnest on Monday. And we thought here on the podcast, what better way to kickstart that debate than with an icebreaker, specifically a round of high-low buffalo. If you're not familiar, and I was not familiar until one of the producers brought this to my

attention, high-low buffalo is a three-part exercise. So you reflect on a high point, a low point, and a buffalo, which is basically something memorable or unique or just random. Ordinarily, this game is a fun way to get children to open up about how their day went, but adults need icebreakers too. Plus, I think it'd be a good way to consider the different aspects of Biden's legacy. So first, let's talk about

the highs. I warned you in advance that we would be playing this game. So I'm curious, Nathaniel, is there a particular high that comes to mind when thinking of Biden's four years in office? Because for the record, I had not heard of this game either. So I've played like highs and lows, but I've never heard about this Buffalo thing. So I don't know. Is this like a weird upstate New York thing? I don't know. The producer who suggested it is from Cleveland, so I don't think so. Shout out to Shane. But nonetheless, Nathaniel,

Biden's high point. So, yeah, I would say I think I would identify Biden's high point as the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. I think that was that will probably end up being his most long lasting achievement. Obviously, it's a big climate bill that people felt actually did move the needle on climate, which is often not the case.

And it was also pretty difficult to get passed. It was considered, I think, a minor miracle that he ended up getting it through the Senate and passed Joe Manchin, for example. And so I think that would have to be considered the biggest success of his administration. I'm curious, though, Mary, and I will ask you for your high point momentarily, why the Inflation Reduction Act and not some of the

other big legislative achievements, in particular ones that were actually bipartisan. So the Inflation Reduction Act was passed through reconciliation on strictly partisan terms. And for example, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act

Act was passed with Republican support was a larger bill. Fiscally speaking, it was a trillion dollars in some ways, almost guaranteed employment for Americans in some of the sectors that have been struggling, you know, in sectors where Americans don't need a four year college degree for years to come. And lots of Americans can see physically that the

the infrastructure where they live is changing. And folks even ran on this. Even Republicans who voted against it ran on this in 2024. And on top of that, it proved that, hey, we can still get big policy passed in America in a bipartisan fashion. So my mind kind of goes there. I'm curious why yours doesn't, Nathaniel.

Yeah, I did give some thought about which of his legislative achievements I would pick as like the number one. And so I consider that as well as the American Rescue Plan early on in his career or in his term. I ended up going with the Inflation Reduction Act, I think, A, because

It is about climate change, which, as we just discussed, is happening and is a long term concern for everybody. It's not something you see action on a lot in Congress, whereas kind of infrastructure spending is something that just happens from time to time. Obama did it, too, for example. I also think because of the degree of difficulty thing, I actually think like getting something through like if you're just talking about kind of like the strongest moment of his presidency politically, I think getting something through on partisan lines when the

Senate majority was so narrow is more impressive than the bipartisan infrastructure bill, because that was something that like, OK, that was going to get some Republican votes in terms of the American Rescue Plan. Maybe we'll talk about this later. But I think that was a an impressive achievement as well. But I think the kind of long term legacy of that bill is going to be tied to the rising inflation of Biden's first couple of years, which a lot of economists have made a link between that and the bill. There's

really four bills I think of here that I think are going to be really characteristic in terms of Biden's legacy, which is this like sort of shift toward really heavy spending and industrial policy, which are, as you mentioned, the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and also the Chips and Science Act.

Between those four, there's over $800 billion in federal subsidies for various sorts of industries related to climate change, related to manufacturing, all kinds of spending. And I really think that's the piece of the legislative agenda that I think is going to be in the history books is this sharp turn toward really heavy spending in industrial policy, which, I mean, I think...

People generally think it's good. I was looking at a political morning consult survey from April of this year, which asked about all four of those bills. And when you ask people if those things have been effective at achieving their main priorities on almost every single priority that they mentioned,

majorities or pluralities of people said, yes, this thing has been effective with the exception of the Inflation Reduction Act lowering inflation. Well, I mean, that means that means Americans are smart. They understand they understand which way is up and which way is down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, I think this is I mean, I tend to agree with Nathaniel. I think that like this general package of like industrial policy focused legislative stuff is going to be one of the like key components

high points in the Biden administration, we can argue about the benefits of industrial policy on another show. We'll do an underground podcast, Mary, where we just talk about industrial policy. But you mentioned $800 billion on industrial policy. There was likewise basically trillions spent on...

demand side stimulus. Obviously, that started under Trump. And so maybe it's not a uniquely Biden thing because the first stimulus checks came out during Trump's presidency, along with the Paycheck Protection Program, which obviously, well, that went to businesses and trickled down, I guess, to employees. And

And the child tax credit, for example. I'm curious if in the polling or in any of the data, we see a sense of what Americans think about that kind of policy, that side of the equation. Oh, people love the checks.

And actually, people really like the child tax credit as well. I mean, when they were negotiating the Inflation Reduction Act, there was a really strong push to get that child tax credit included in that legislation because it is so popular. And it was very effective as well. Yeah. Honestly, we should mention that as a major accomplishment, although obviously it didn't last. Okay. Well, I can't hold my suspense any longer. Mary, what's your high? I mean, I'm going to take a...

way back to 2021. It is hard to remember this, but when Biden took office, we were in a pandemic. Mm-hmm.

We were still at our houses. And one of the first things that the Biden administration took on was getting vaccines out to people across this country and around the world, frankly, to get us back to work and to school and to all the places we want to be. And I would credit the Trump administration also for Operation Warp Speed in making that possible. But the logistical challenge of getting shots in arms is huge.

huge. And the Biden administration was so effective at getting doses where people need them, making sure that the people who needed them first got them first. Really, that vaccine rollout was one of the most directly beneficial pieces of government I think most people would have interacted with early in the Biden presidency because you needed vaccines.

To get out of your house. Well, and Mary, when it comes to the data on that, so it was 200 million jabs in the first 100 days. It's incredible. And that was also... We know, Mary, you've always got the polls in front of you. That was...

the crux of when Biden was actually popular, you know, he was only above 50% until August, his first year in office. You know, for all four years, he only got a majority those first, I guess, five, six months of his presidency when this was all happening. And there was a lot of optimism. So maybe you just want to characterize that first five, six months as the high point in

But every president gets a honeymoon period. So I don't know that that's fair either. Yeah, I mean, his overall approval rating was in the 50s early in this presidency. But his approval rating on handling COVID was...

up in the 60s. We were tracking that at the time. And so people like, yeah, they approved of Biden, but they like especially approved of his handling of the pandemic. And I know in the years since then, this issue has become quite fraught. But the Biden administration taking over the pandemic handling, people thought he was doing a great job. People got

to get vaccinated and get back to their lives and just like a really competent use of government. I'm curious about the fact

foreign policy piece of this. Biden, for his part, clearly thinks that his rallying support for Ukraine is an important piece of his legacy. You can tell from the speeches that he has given in the final days of his presidency. And of course, we're recording this at a time where it seems like a ceasefire deal has come to fruition between Israel and Hamas. At the same time,

The vibe for much of Biden's presidency was something akin to, you know, the world is on fire, right? Like Biden doesn't seem to be able to get things under control when it comes to all kinds of things, inflation, immigration, but foreign policy being one of those pieces. So, you know, when it comes down to defining his legacy, is that a high point or a low point? So correct me if I'm wrong, Mary, but wasn't foreign policy one of Biden's better issues until 2020?

The war in Gaza? Yes. Yeah. Well, wait, I'm also forgetting the withdrawal from Afghanistan. So the end of the honeymoon period overlapped with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which also overlapped with cases of COVID rising again, even after all of those vaccinations and inflation starting to tick up again. Yeah. Yeah.

But to be clear, when you when I say one of his better issues, I mean, in comparison to like Donald Trump or Republicans, that's what I mean. Yeah, I think foreign policy is a complicated issue for him. I think he has some successes, I think, Ukraine and funding Ukraine and is part of it. Although, you know, the appetite for that, especially among Republicans, did did fall off eventually, although I'm not sure how much you can imagine.

really blame Biden for that. Obviously, the war in Gaza, he was criticized for his handling of, although you do have the ceasefire, which has a potential to kind of be a latecomer in terms of, you know, his legacy, although, you know, the US, I think, did play a fairly minor role in this, you know, there were also kind of emissaries from Egypt and Qatar.

And also the Trump administration or incoming Trump administration was also somewhat involved. So I think that's a tricky one. And obviously, this just happened. So it's gonna be hard to judge. But then, yeah, the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was basically universally panned. So I think there are pluses and minuses for him on that issue.

Yeah. And even when it comes to Ukraine, there are some people who will blame Biden for not explaining to the American public why Ukraine's interests and America's interests were aligned. I mean, some of the people who were most vocal on this were people like Nikki Haley or Adam Kinzinger, who are not Democrats. And so I don't think Democrats were very articulate or vocal about why Americans should even care about the NATO alliance vis-a-vis Ukraine. Yeah. And I think

Um, Americans have a tendency to expect that the president can basically just like make stuff happen that they don't have any control over. So the fact that there is a war in Russia or between Russia and Ukraine, um, people will blame Biden for as if he did that when, I mean, you can, you can talk about particular moves the administration may or may not have made that might've contributed to this or that. But frankly, uh,

he's not the president of Russia or Ukraine. He doesn't get to control those actors. And so I think just a general sense of like people are fighting and Biden can't make it stop. I mean, that's true. He can't, like literally can't. But people expect him to be able to. They generally expect a lot more power from the American president on the global stage than I think the American president is actually able to wield. OK, let's talk about Lowe's. So Lowe's

Obviously, Joe Biden leaves office as an unpopular president. That's not necessarily unique. That's been the case for a number of presidents in the modern polling era. But I think there are a number of things that folks will point to as his lows. We've already addressed some of them. But Mary, what is your number one low for the Biden administration? I think I'm going to just take the entire summer of 2024 and

I don't think that's fair. So what happened in the summer of 2024? That was the debate with Donald Trump, an entire month of drip, drip, drip from from lawmakers and and Democratic political operatives trying to get Joe Biden to drop out of the election, ultimately him dropping out on July 21st, followed by just sort of his

slow retreat from public life, right? I mean, just a constant drumbeat of badness for him. I don't know really how else to say it. Every single day you turn on the TV and someone is telling you you are unable to do your job. Every day, a different person on the TV, your advisors in your ears, your trusted partners like Nancy Pelosi on the Hill, really pushing you to

essentially quit your job. That's got to be, from my perspective, one of the things that will go down in history from this administration is the extraordinary nature of that summer. Okay. All right. I don't know that it's fair to claim an entire three to four month period. It's not. No, I actually will defend this one. Notwithstanding. I think that's one package. I think June 27th, which was the day of the debate to July 21st,

that is a succinct enough time to be like a moment that you can say this was Joe Biden's worst moment. I think beginning with the debate, which obviously we all remember, we were there, we saw that debate. If you have to point to literally a low point, just like him stumbling through some of those answers in front of millions of people,

What was it? We finally ended Medicare? We beat Medicare, yeah. Beat Medicaid. We beat Medicaid. It was a Medicaid? Okay. I think so. But like, right. So like that line has already is like that's become like a meme, right? That's part of the discourse. Everybody remembers that. That's not that's just embarrassing. And then obviously his ultimate decision to drop out of the race, which was unprecedented so late in the game, like,

For any president to essentially lose reelection, which is what happened, he had to drop out of the race because he was losing, is embarrassing. And yeah, and that is also, I think, just tied into like generally his decision to seek reelection despite his advanced age and other, you could even bring in some of the other age-related incidents like the special counsel report. And I think that is going to be a big,

part of what people remember about Joe Biden. And obviously, that's on the negative side of the ledger. So is that also your low point, Nathaniel? Or do you have a different low point? I was I yeah, I was debating between two. That was one of them. I think that was the obvious one. So I'm glad that Mary took it. The other one for me, and maybe you'll bulk at this too, Galen is the

All of like the second half of 2021 and 2022, i.e. inflation. Like, I think if we're talking about. Yeah, I think I think this counts as like you can generally say a low is that the fact that prices rose so much under Joe Biden's administration. And I think that is if you had to point to one reason why Democrats lost control of the White House, you would have to say it is that Americans were not happy about it. It didn't.

really put the pinch on people. I think that is also going to be perhaps the headline of his administration. If you're talking about specific moments, I think you'd have to talk about the extraordinary nature of the electoral shenanigans that happened over the summer of 2024. But in terms of the

broad strokes, you'd have to say inflation, even though, yes, presidents often don't have a huge impact on the economy. Like I said before, there is some evidence pointing to the fact that the American Rescue Plan did contribute to it. But yes, other countries did do inflation. But I think presidents are remembered for better or for worse for the economic performance under them

And I think this is what Joe Biden will be remembered for. And I think if you tie all of that, the economic thing and also his decision to seek reelection, and obviously you can debate about whether if he hadn't run from the first place, whether Kamala Harris would have won or not. But I think so much of Biden's

The whole raison d'etre coming back on the scene after a hiatus of seemingly running into the sunset was Donald Trump is really dangerous. We have to make sure he is banished forever. And I think between those two things, Joe Biden did a lot to enable Donald Trump to be in a position to be taking office again on Monday. And I think that when you've stated that your goal is to end this existential threat and you don't end this existential threat,

that's going to be a black mark on you. Well, Nathaniel, it's interesting you say that because for one, the low point being inflation as a package. Sure. If we're going to just lump together whole years or months or whatever, then yes. And I think actually

Actually, Nathaniel, part of the impact of that is not just a low point for Biden. It's a low point for the progressive movement, which I think had been ascendant, at least in economic terms. I don't know what will happen next. But for example, the child tax credit not being included in the...

Inflation Reduction Act is in part a response to people getting the sense that these progressive economic policies are inflationary. And so for folks who are, you know, in the Bernie Sanders part of the party, that is a real challenge for them now. And I think that whether these kinds of policies get pursued in the future was in part dependent on whether Democrats won in 2024. I think folks will be much more scared now about potential inflationary impacts of

of the policy that Sanders has pushed for since 2016. But the tail end of what you were saying, I think, is the most important, Nathaniel, which is Joe Biden's entire raison d'etre was keeping Donald Trump out of power, preventing him from winning reelection in 2020 and preventing him from winning election again in 2024. And therefore, the low point of Biden's tenure was my birthday, November 5th, 2024.

Because Joe Biden and Democrats said a lot about how dangerous Trump was, how uniquely dangerous Trump was. But when push comes to shove, they didn't seem willing or able to do the things necessary to try to diminish those threats. Right.

Biden governed from the left. You know, you can debate how far left and how much he moderated throughout his four years. But when Americans said we have an issue with inflation, when Americans said we have an issue with illegal immigration, when Americans said that they were dissatisfied with Biden, full stop and quite dissatisfied with Biden at historic levels, Biden

Biden and Democrats did nothing. It took until the spring of an election year for the Biden administration to do anything about the migration crisis at the border. For the entire two-year period that you mentioned, Nathaniel, Democrats told the press and the American public that inflation was transitory and that it was a media creation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean,

This was not an administration that governed as if it believed that if it failed on the measures that Americans were judging it on, democracy would end. And so it was a very sort of split screen presidency to live through, where on the one hand, you're telling me that you are sort of like existential savior for the republic. And on the other hand, you're not actually responding to the things that Americans are dissatisfied with. And to me, that's the real failure.

Maybe Biden needs to read more polls. I'll never argue with that, Mary. OK, that brings us to the buffalo, which is something weird or quirky that stuck out to you. An image maybe from Biden's four years in office that will help contribute to his legacy. Nathaniel, we're back to you. Yeah.

Yeah, I had a hard time coming up with this one. I will credit the producers who suggested this, but all the stuff about his dogs biting Secret Service agents all the time, that was kind of weird and quirky and kind of a funny story. But I don't know. Generally speaking, it was a long four years and there was a lot of news and there weren't that many, like,

you know, lighthearted moments. And I guess literal dog bites man story was not necessarily lighthearted, but it was weird. So I'll go with that. Wait, Nathaniel, you have to cite the actual number. How many times did Biden's dog commander bite Secret Service agents? It was a lot, wasn't it? Like a dozen? It was two dozen. It was 24 separate occasions, according to CNN's reporting. Poor commander.

And it wasn't just Commander, too, right? Wasn't Major also a problem dog? I don't know. I don't have that data at hand. But, Mary, what was your Buffalo moment? I mean, I think there's like a series of images that I want to cite here, which is just these like various images of Biden doing old man stuff. Like, yeah.

I mean, some of them I'm going to remember because they were relatively recent, like when he was down in South America recently and gave a speech and then just like turned around and walked away into the rainforest or the time he was asked a question about Gaza and he answered it with holding an ice cream cone in front of his face like it was a microphone.

Or these moments where it appears that he's like turning around to talk to nobody. Like just this like collection of images of Biden looking really old, I think is like...

something that I think is pretty defining about the way the American people saw his presidency. That's too serious. This is supposed to be the fun, the fun part of the game. Did you watch the video of him talking into an ice cream microphone? Yeah, Nathaniel, have you seen any of these videos? I remember the ice cream, but I was going to say the ice cream, you know, like generally, I mean, that's been a thing, a Biden thing for decades. Just go ahead and Google

Biden, Gaza, ice cream, you'll find it. Truly a mad lib for the ages. But Mary, that also connects to what my Buffalo moment is, which is that now memed moment where he's leaving a press conference and he turns around and just smiles at the camera, but says absolutely nothing. And you're just like, what is going on here? And I think it, you know, I'll make this one serious as well, which gets at a larger point, which

which is that Biden was very media averse. And I think it's with reason. I think that the administration, the people around him were nervous about the way that he would come off in unscripted moments. And as a result, he talked to the press less than any other president in most

modern presidential history. He gave just 164 appearances in his first three and a half years. This is according to data from Martha Joint Kumar. That compares to Trump, who gave 468 appearances, Obama, who gave 570, Bush, who gave 248, Clinton over 300, H.W. also almost 400, Reagan 262. You get the point. But I think that Americans felt at certain points like

where is the president? You know, do we have a president right now? It seems like I already mentioned the things that Americans felt like were out of control. Where is the person that we expect to be in control of these things? And you both have sort of gestured at the fact that presidents only have so much control of what happens during their tenure, but they do have control over how they react to it, how they message on it. And I think that

You know, there's always this debate. Democrats are always like, we're bad at messaging. And Republicans are like, you're not bad at messaging. Your policies are wrong. You're on the wrong side of public opinion. And for both parties, that can be the case. And there are certainly policies where Republicans are on the wrong side of public opinion. And there are certainly policies where Democrats are on the wrong side of public opinion. But talented politicians are able to

bring Americans along for the ride or something that is unpopular. Try to at least explain why they should be given some grace or even use language that helps, you know, pivot perceptions or reaches across the aisle, take the other party's language to try to describe a challenge that you're facing or something along those lines. And we didn't see that from Biden. And I think we know why. I think it's probably because he wasn't very well able to. I'm curious if either of you

disagree with that. But I think his absence is almost like the buffalo. Yeah, maybe. I mean, and when he was present, I think you get the moments that I'm describing where we see him, but there's sort of like, I can't believe that this is the person that is in charge.

And I think that the absence also somewhat explains some of the confusing messaging from the Democrats that you were mentioning before, Galen, you know, saying basically to people like, no, inflation isn't a real thing or it's transitory or it's not actually happening the way that you say it is, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that you didn't have a messenger at the top who's like, this is the thing that we're going to do. This is how we're doing it. There's there felt leaderless. It felt like everyone was out there trying to spin any way they could because there was no one there.

to give that overarching vision to what the messaging was supposed to be like. And maybe that's part of why, you know, you saw this sort of confusing, non-responsive issues and messaging from Democratic Party throughout Biden's term. And I want to say I didn't. I've jumped in and shared my low and my Buffalo and I haven't shared my high. So I want to be I want to be fair here, which is that

At a time when I think a lot of Americans, a lot of people in the press, and even people around the world, I've spent some time outside of the United States over the past several months hearing from people.

At a time when people view the country as extremely divided and incapable of sort of functioning in some somewhat basic ways, Joe Biden was able to target areas where there was agreement and actually get stuff passed accordingly. And I'm not just talking about the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is a big deal. Trump talked about it ad nauseum, but never did anything

about it. I'm also talking about gun control measures. I'm also talking about chips and science. So infrastructure is one area that he recognized you could bring people together, but also challenging China's ascendance. You know, when it comes to trade policies, although he undid, for example, Trump's immigration policies, he didn't undo Trump's tariffs on China. And the Chips and Science Act is geared towards allowing America to compete and make sure that it

on shores, certain chips production or whatever from a national security standpoint, from an economic security standpoint. So those are some very clear areas where, you know,

Trump will talk a lot about these things, but are you actually going to get the policy passed to make sure that decades from now something has actually been done about it? So I think being able to bring politicians, Americans, whatever, together on those issues was a real high point. And I think a big piece of the debate over Biden's legacy going forward is you got all this legislation passed and Americans didn't seem to give you credit for it, even when, as

asked directly about it, it was popular. So what is the relationship between passing popular policy and being a popular president? And I think that conflict may well be one of the biggest tension points that scholars discuss, which is, okay, you check these boxes, but the number one thing you were there to do, which was keep Trump out of power, you weren't able to do because you weren't actually popular.

Yeah, I do want to also point out we've cited polls throughout this, and I think that's obviously important. But opinions of presidents do improve with the passage of time. We just said goodbye to Jimmy Carter, who was not popular when he left office, but is now generally admired, and people have a favorable opinion of him. And so...

Biden's legacy will change. It will evolve, as you said, Galen, over the next several years and decades. And people's opinions of him may change as well. And that may reflect like if they see the impact of some of these bills and start to weigh those things differently. So I just think we ought to keep that in mind and say that this is really just a first draft of his legacy that we're talking about right now.

Yeah, maybe goes to some of the limitations of hanging your legacy on industrial policy where the actual impacts of those policies are going to take years, maybe decades to be completely felt. Right. I mean, you can't build chips manufacturing plants overnight and.

when those plants finally do open, it may very well be Donald Trump cutting the ribbon. Yeah. I mean, I should say when it comes to the rose-colored glasses through which we view past presidents, Gallup recently released a survey asking Americans about their perceptions of Biden and other recent presidents.

37% said he would go down in history poorly. Biden would, which is higher than any other president at this very moment. But when Americans were asked in the final days of Trump's presidency, 47% said that he would go down considered poorly.

Now, in this most recent survey, where Biden's at 37%, Trump is at 31%. So that is a 16 point decline in the number of Americans who said he would be viewed poorly over the span of four years. And, you know, Jimmy Carter went from ineffective politician to

and ineffective at policy to well-regarded humanitarian. I mean, even the Bushes, for example, Bush Jr. is seen as like now somewhat affable, even though when he left, all people could think about in terms of his legacy was the Iraq war. And, you know, George H.W. Bush, who was also seen as an ineffective advocate

politician is now maybe seen as one of the the last politicians who was willing to totally buck his party to do what he thought the country needed, right? Raise taxes during a Republican administration in order to try to balance the budget. So rose colored glasses are real. And we'll meet back here in four years to talk about how Biden's legacy looks four years on. Sure.

For now, we're going to leave it there. So thank you so much, Nathaniel and Mary. Thanks, Galen. Thank you, Galen. And a note that Monday is obviously inauguration. We usually record this podcast Monday mornings, but that doesn't really make sense. I know the big event is at noon on Monday, but then we're also expecting a lot of executive actions to come later in the day. So we're going to figure out how to exactly cover telecasts.

Trump's second inauguration. So either look for that late Monday or early Tuesday morning, our inauguration podcast. My name is Galen Druk. Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Tritavian. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcast.530.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon. ♪

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