WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has complained privately to allies that his name and his achievements have all but disappeared from the national conversation and how quickly the party he has served for more than five decades appears to have disappeared from him, according to six people. familiar with his comments.
Biden has occasionally noted that Vice President Kamala Harris, who took his place at the top of the Democratic ticket in July, has not mentioned him in her campaign speeches lately, even when she talks about an economy he thinks that his policy is aimed at this. a positive trajectory, these people said.
And he was particularly struck by one of the recent notable moments when she did talk about him — during this month’s debate with former President Donald Trump, three of the people familiar with his comments said.
“Clearly, I am not Joe Biden,” Harris said at the time, adding, “And I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.” She made the comment in response to Trump’s claim that “she is Biden” as he tried to make the point that Harris and the president’s economic policies are no different.
Details of Biden’s mixed feelings about the message of a campaign he has painstakingly abandoned offer insight into how he has settled into his extraordinary decision to step aside from the pursuit of the Democratic nomination and his vice president to support. His private comments also reflect a transition in Harris’ campaign as she defines her own position as a candidate and navigates a key question voters have about her candidacy: how she would differ from Biden.
This account of the president’s private remarks comes from 12 people with knowledge of the Biden-Harris dynamic, including administration and campaign officials, as well as allies involved in his campaign’s transition to his vice president. They were granted anonymity to speak freely about the inner workings of the campaign and the White House.
They all made clear that Biden wants Harris to win in November — a development he also believes will define his legacy — and that he plans to do whatever he can to help her.
The president conveyed this personally and repeatedly to Harris, according to a senior campaign official and another person familiar with the dynamic.
“He always tells her, ‘The most important thing is that you win,’” the senior campaign official said, adding that Harris and Biden had a productive lunch together last week and said her campaign is about “looking forward.”
“We need to tell people who she is and what she would do,” the campaign official said. “There was no real interest in hearing about his running performance. That is still the case.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement in response to this article: “These uninformed claims are the opposite of the truth.”
“President Biden welcomes the strong response the American people are receiving to Vice President Harris’ leadership and policies that move us into the future, away from dangerous agendas of the past like MAGAnomics and abortion bans,” he added.
The six people with knowledge of Biden’s private comments said he understands the political reasoning behind shifting campaign messages so he is not on his record, even if it frustrates him at times.
“He fully understands the general lack of mention of ‘Bidenomics’ and ‘Joe Biden.’ Politically, he understands that,” said one of the people familiar with the dynamic.
A senior Biden aide said the president asks daily if there is anything else he can do to help Harris and they speak regularly.
“He wants nothing more than to do everything we can to support her,” the senior Biden said. “He is 100% there.”
But while Biden is attuned to political realities, he has also expressed a range of emotions about his exit from the race — from a sense that his legacy rests on a Harris win to fear about his fading mark on the national stage, according to the people familiar with his private comments.
They described a president who feels loyal to his vice president — and she to him — and less bitter than he was in the immediate aftermath of his exit from the race, when he felt left out by people he thought that they were his friends, but also felt abandoned at times.
“It’s very complex,” said one person familiar with his thinking.
In the month after declaring her candidacy on July 21, Harris frequently spoke about Biden during her campaign — repeatedly opening her rallies by saying she had delivered “greetings” from the president. Those mentions have declined in her campaign speeches in recent weeks, although she praised Biden at a White House event last week and appeared with him on September 14 when they both addressed the Congressional Black Caucus’ Phoenix Awards Dinner. The two also appeared together at a Labor Day gathering this month.
“History will show what we know here,” Harris said at their Sept. 2 event. “Joe Biden has been one of the most transformative presidents in the United States that we have ever seen. And it comes from his heart.”
However, Harris did not mention Biden’s name once in a 40-minute campaign speech on the economy in Pittsburgh last week. And while she said things like “our country has come a long way since President Biden and I took office” in her campaign speeches, Harris now routinely says “we” when talking about the work the Biden-Harris administration has performed.
“Over the past three and a half years, we have taken great steps forward to recover from the public health and economic crisis we inherited,” she said in her economic speech last week, for example.
By contrast, Biden — who is expected to headline events for Harris in October — and members of his administration have dramatically increased the number of times they publicly mention her since she became a presidential candidate.
“She needs to become her own person,” a Harris campaign official said. “She has to do that to win.”
While Harris led Trump in a new NBC News poll this month on which presidential candidate better represents change, 40% of registered voters said they were more concerned that she would continue the same approach as Biden (compared to 39% who were more was in favor of change). concerned that Trump would continue the same approach from his first presidential term).
Harris feels genuine affection for Biden, and their relationship has remained strong during their three-and-a-half years together in the White House, people familiar with their relationship said. They said Biden has expressed appreciation for her loyalty, especially during the most difficult of times when he was under pressure to drop out of the presidential race and felt that other Democratic Party leaders had turned against him.
“She loves the president. She loves the president. She’s proud of the record they have,” said a person familiar with Harris’ strategy. “But I think the hard thing for a lot of people is that this will be the Harris administration. It won’t be Biden part two.”
Since Harris declared her candidacy, her campaign advisers have discussed how to answer the question of whether she would be an extension of Biden’s agenda, and she has broken with him on a number of issues. But her and her team’s focus has been on how to win in November, and a big part of that has to do with explaining who Harris is, independent of Biden.
Some of her advisers believe Harris should say “I’m not Joe Biden” instead of “I’m not the president” because the latter could leave the impression she was incapable of doing the job, four people with knowledge of discussions. said.
“So she has to say, ‘I’m not him.’ She can’t say, ‘I’m not the president,’ because people will say she’s not ready for this,” one said. “He understands that. It still stings no less.”
Harris repeated the phrase just days after the presidential debate when asked in a radio interview how she differs from Biden. “Well, I’m clearly not Joe Biden,” she said. “I offer a new generation of leadership.”
Appearing on ABC’s “The View” last week, Biden insisted he would have defeated Trump had he stayed in the race.
“I never fully believed the claims that there was somehow overwhelming resistance to running again,” Biden said. “The fact is, my poll numbers always managed to beat this guy.”
Three of the people interviewed for this article attributed the discomfort with Harris’ campaign to Biden’s former inner circle, saying they had done him a disservice by not being realistic enough about his chances of victory , even despite stubbornly low approval ratings.
However, since Biden dropped out after his disastrous debate performance in June, polls have shifted in Harris’ favor. While the race between Harris and Trump remains tight overall, the Democrats’ map has expanded since Biden’s departure, bringing North Carolina into play, as well as Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Enthusiasm within the party has increased dramatically since Harris took over from Biden on July 21. She is filling locations like Biden never has in the battleground states, attracting tens of thousands of new volunteers and inspiring eye-popping fundraising numbers.
However, the allies said Biden will ultimately feel vindicated not only by the selflessness of his decision to step aside for Harris, but also by what Democrats see as a four-year term rich in achievements.
“I’m sure reality is hitting him,” John Morgan, a longtime Biden ally and Democratic donor, said of Biden watching the Democratic campaign evolve without him. “But the big reality for Joe Biden is that, as we go through all of this, his four years were a masterpiece.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
