WASHINGTON – For more than three, sometimes painful, weeks, President Joe Biden and his team were involved in a campaign to save his candidacy. With his prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday night, a new effort is underway: shaping his legacy.
A team of Biden’s closest advisors is already working to outline what that will look like. The discussion includes domestic priorities he could advance in upcoming budget negotiations with Congress or through executive action, diplomatic initiatives he could pursue more freely, and accomplishing what he described as the most elusive of the three goals he outlined in his campaign. for 2020 – unify the country.
NBC News spoke to a half-dozen White House and campaign officials about what Biden is planning, and aides said they recognize that the biggest factor that will shape how he is viewed in history will be whether Vice President Kamala Harris has success in your attempt to succeed him. .
“Everything is being viewed through this lens,” said a White House official.
In the early stages of this new phase, Harris campaign and Biden administration officials outline a so far seamless approach to advancing both their goals at the same time. There has been no explicit directive for Biden’s aides to run key decisions through Harris’ team for approval — but they have nonetheless collaborated to ensure they are rowing in the same direction.
Some of this is necessarily more than design — Harris’s team on the campaign and in the White House had been a much smaller part of the larger operation. But it also reflects the experience of staff on both sides — especially the long-standing relationships between Sheila Nix, who oversaw Harris’ campaign team, and top Biden advisers with whom she worked when he was vice president during the Obama administration. .
It builds on the approach taken shortly after Biden’s poor debate performance on June 27, when the White House publicized Biden and Harris’ lunch and added it to an Independence Day event, as well as Biden’s oft-repeated remarks about how Harris was ready to be president.
His team also took extra care not to take any steps that could be interpreted as planning for his own potential candidacy, for fear it would be seen as disloyal, a senior adviser said.
Both sides understand that there has been a kind of honeymoon period that may not last. But it is still an important moment to execute successfully and try to develop momentum that can take it forward.
It started with Harris offering a tribute to Biden on Monday, describing his single-term record as rivaling or surpassing that of most two-term presidencies. Now, Biden’s Oval Office speech presents a critical opportunity to speak to the American people as they no longer see him as an embattled candidate but as a humble, soon-to-be former president.
Part of his message on Wednesday night will build on the speech he gave in the Oval Office just over a week ago – following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump – about the need for the country to come together despite an often bitter election campaign. For weeks, however, Biden has been more at odds with his own party.
After announcing nine years ago that he would not be a candidate in the 2016 elections, Biden told the country that no one should commit to running for president unless they could commit “110%” to the effort. Privately, Biden acknowledged, in making the decision to drop out of the 2024 race, that he could no longer fight a two-front war if he stayed in it — against his party and against Trump.
Biden officials described experiencing a range of emotions since learning of his decision not to seek a second term. There was shock at the decision itself, which in retrospect seemed inevitable, but for weeks they worked hard to avoid. There was anger, especially from Democratic leaders who considered betraying what they saw as Biden’s loyalty to the party by pressuring him to abandon the party. And there was sadness amid concern that — as Biden himself has often said — the 90-minute debate in June might overshadow a career of committed public service.
But the time for sentimentality is short, as a senior campaign official said. And Biden’s speech offers, especially for his team at the White House, a point of convergence for his remaining months in office.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, speaking to White House officials this week, said that in every conversation he’s had with him, Biden has guided him to continue moving forward on priorities like working to reduce costs, implementing important legislation like the infrastructure project and the CHIPS Act and the defense of democracy.
A source close to Biden said he will also repeat another message he delivered after declining to run in 2016: that while he is not a candidate, he will not stop engaging in the public debate.
In some ways, Biden’s political obituary was already written eight years ago, as he prepared to step down as vice president. There was a rousing tribute at that year’s Democratic convention, a daylong event in the Senate, where he also served for 36 years, and the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. The last two events were mitigated, however, by the shock of Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
Wednesday’s speech will be just the first in a series of farewell messages that Biden will have the opportunity to deliver, including next month at a Democratic National Convention that will be revamped to focus on Harris and his eventual running mate. He will also deliver the traditional presidential farewell address in the final days of his term, when aides hope he is truly preparing to pass the baton to President-elect Harris.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
