Joe Biden is nothing more than a ghost. At the White House. On the international stage. In American conversations. A disappearance announced since he abandoned the race for his re-election during the summer. Which doesn’t make it any less of a sad end to the presidency.
I spent yesterday at the White House, representing the foreign press within the “pool” which follows the president, like every day, wherever he goes.
A very simple mandate, since we only saw him in the evening, during a reception offered to donors to his shortened presidential campaign, to the ambassadors he appointed and who will be dismissed as soon as Donald Trump arrives in power and to those who accompanied him throughout his long political career.
A QUIET END OF PRESIDENCY
He did not answer our questions any more than he did during his recent trip to South America. Even his official speeches there were short: just seven minutes, for example, after his visit to the Amazon rainforest to celebrate biodiversity and support the fight against climate change.
In Peru as in Brazil, my colleagues who made the trip say they saw him fade away or, more precisely, be discreetly pushed aside by his counterparts, who no longer expect anything from him and whose gaze is now focused on his irascible successor.
Back in Washington, he has only eight weeks left to consolidate what he can of the policies adopted during his presidency: investments in green energy, student debt relief plan, aid to Ukraine.
He and Democratic senators are also engaged in a sprint to confirm as many federal judges as possible. He can also be proud of his record in this area; it approaches the 234 judicial confirmations that Donald Trump boasts of having obtained during his first term.
A WHOLE POLITICAL LIFETIME FOR THAT
Joe Biden probably deserved better. This man played the democratic game for more than half a century: as a senator for three and a half decades, as Barack Obama’s loyal vice-president, then as president for, in his eyes, a too-short term of four years.
He still has to do before leaving once and for all this White House where he would have liked to stay, but it is clear, watching him go, that his heart is no longer in it. That said, make no mistake, he will carry out his duties conscientiously.
Biden will remain faithful to the institutions and traditions of the republic until the end. This is why he did not hesitate, ten days ago, to welcome Donald Trump, a man who embodies everything he despises, into the Oval Office to prepare the transfer of power.
And that’s also why he will lend himself on Monday to the traditional pardon of two turkeys a few days before the ThanksgivingAmerican Thanksgiving. We may be, at the same time, the leader of the free world for another sixty days and the most bitter politician in the United States, his compatriots want to see that their president is not heartless. Joe Biden will show them one last time.
THE OLDEST PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
Joe Biden
82 years and 2 months (at the end of his mandate)
AFP
Donald Trump
78 years and 7 months (at the start of his second term)
AFP
Ronald Reagan
77 years and 11 months
Dwight Eisenhower
70 years and 3 months
Andrew Jackson
69 years and 11 months
