ANN ARBOR, Mich. — President Joe Biden began the final stretch of his political career this week freed from the rigors of running for reelection, appearing by turns nostalgic, liberated, and — in some cases — resigned to finding himself once again in a supporting role.
After a two-week summer vacation, Biden has been campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris, now at the top of the Democratic ticket, and traveling the country to promote his administration’s accomplishments.
But for a man who has spent decades seeking the highest office, only to drop his bid for reelection under pressure from his party, these final months before the November election are bittersweet, his allies say.
“For my whole career, I’ve either been too young or too old, never in between,” Biden told a crowd of union workers Friday in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The president, who was not yet 30 when he first won a Senate `seat in 1972, cracked that he went on to serve for “374 years.”
Earlier in the week, Biden appeared unbothered about alienating conservatives when he attacked Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — in the Republican’s home state — for not voting for the Inflation Reduction Act, the president’s signature legislation.
And Monday in Pittsburgh, during an event with Harris, Biden did not seem particularly keen to cede the spotlight. He spoke eight minutes longer than the vice president, even as he said he would be “on the sidelines” going forward.
“It’s complicated because this is not the September he had planned,” said David Axelrod, a former senior aide to former President Barack Obama. Axelrod described the president as relaxed, candid, and — to borrow a term from Harris’ allies — unburdened.
“He’s not doing much, ‘Well, I shouldn’t say that’ anymore,’” Axelrod said. “And that’s probably good.”
The Harris campaign is deploying Biden in a targeted way — mostly to the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where he still appeals to white, working-class voters and union members.
But Harris will try to forge her own political identity.
Last month, in their first joint public appearance since Biden dropped out of the race, Harris was the main figure during a healthcare event in Largo, Maryland.
She was the one who thanked all the elected officials by name. She was the one who set the tone for the event. While she spoke, Biden stood quietly to the side, his hands clasped in front of him, almost as if he were the vice president again. It was a role he played for eight years under Barack Obama, but one he thought was behind him.
Biden’s allies emphasize that he is still the president and that he is still navigating crises at home and abroad, including the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. In blunt terms, he told reporters Monday that he did not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was doing enough to bring home hostages.
Three days later, he accused Republicans of failing to address gun violence after two students and two teachers were shot and killed in the deadliest episode of school violence in Georgia history.
“We need more than thoughts and prayers,” Biden said. “Some of my Republican friends in Congress just finally have to say: ‘Enough is enough. We have to do something.’”
And while the pressures of the campaign may have relented, Biden is still facing personal difficulty as his son, Hunter, faces the possibility of time behind bars in a federal tax case.
Biden has spent much of his time on the trail burnishing his legacy and dipping into the past, nothing new for a president known to embrace storytelling. (He often adds an emphatic, “Not a joke!” in the middle of a tale.)
But now, in the final months of his presidency, Biden appears to be looking back a bit more than usual. This week, he described the joy he felt during his first Senate race when a steelworker named Hughie endorsed him. He told stories about his great-grandfather working in mining in Pennsylvania. He shouted out his friends in the Senate, reminding voters that grew up in the same neighborhood as Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
“The literal weight of the world is not solely on his shoulders,” said Quentin James, an ally of Biden and co-founder of the Collective PAC, which seeks to rally Black voters. “I think he can be unfiltered. To be relaxed.”
On Friday, Biden took a particularly unfiltered tone toward former President Donald Trump, the person he felt duty-bound to keep out of the White House.
Choking up as he remembered his son, Beau, who served in Iraq and later died of brain cancer, Biden said he was enraged by comments attributed to Trump, that American soldiers killed in combat were “losers” and “suckers.”
“I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I’m glad I wasn’t there,” Biden said. “I think I would’ve done something.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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