Biden makes media rounds

FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN is sitting for his first interviews since leaving office, as Democrats grapple with an identity crisis and seek a new generation of leaders to guide them out of the political wilderness.

Biden gave his first post-presidency interview to the BBC, where he criticized Trump’s handling of global affairs, from the Russia-Ukraine war to his talk of acquiring Greenland.

“What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are,” Biden said. “We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.”

President Trump swung back during a press conference in the Oval Office.

“He didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Trump said.

“We went through four years of misery,” Trump added, saying there wouldn’t have been an Oct. 7 terror attack against Israel; inflation; or a war between Russia and Ukraine if Biden hadn’t been elected.

For some Democrats, Biden’s legacy will be about his decision to drop out of the 2024 campaign after a disastrous debate performance exacerbated voter concerns about his age and ability to serve.

He quickly endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris, who gave Democrats a jolt of excitement that fizzled out on election night, when Trump carried every swing state.

Biden said in the BBC interview that he has no regrets and that it wouldn’t have mattered if he dropped out earlier or allowed for a competitive primary.

“I don’t know how that would have made much of a difference,” Biden said.

He argued that he stuck around because his first term was going so well he wanted to ride the momentum.

“I’d become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, I’m going to stop now,” Biden said. “I meant what I said when I started, that I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation, it’s a transition government, but things move so quickly it made it difficult to walk away.”

A slew of new books hit the shelves this year reporting on Biden’s decline and how those around him conspired to shield him from public scrutiny.

Biden and former first lady Jill Biden will appear for a joint interview on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday.

Harris has not sat for any interviews, but she’s given two public speeches and appeared at the Met Gala in New York this week.

Biden’s former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview on MSNBC that the party can’t return to the status quo and must land on a message that resonates with ordinary Americans if they’re going to win elections again.

“If my party seems like it’s calling for a return to a status quo from before, that would be both substantively wrong, and politically it would fail,” Buttigieg said.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who will hold a town hall event in Pennsylvania this week, wrote in an op-ed for The Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Democrats still look like the party that brought a knife to a gunfight. And honestly, it’s not as easy as just standing up to Donald Trump at every possible chance. Voters want Washington to work. They want their elected leaders to work together and solve problems, not score points.”

Republicans are dealing with their own governing struggles.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis finding that millions of people would lose their health insurance coverage under GOP proposals to cut Medicaid spending to pay for Trump’s agenda.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already taken one controversial proposal to cut Medicaid funding off the table and said another would likely be excluded from the final bill.

The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel writes:

“The analysis…shows the trade-offs facing Republicans as they try to pay for their party-line bill, which among other provisions would fund an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.”

There are other issues.

Conservative fiscal hawks warned Johnson that Trump’s agenda bill “must not add to the deficit.”

And a handful of Republicans from blue states say they’ll sink the tax bill if it doesn’t raise the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations, [and] a lot of ideas have been exchanged,” said Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who is among the GOP’s SALT absolutists. “But we’re very far from a specific deal.”

Republicans also have electoral concerns.

They fear Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will run for the Senate, costing them a seat in a key swing state.

“That is a swing state that’s pretty independent-minded,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-S.D.). “If I was to put my political science hat on and look at all the criteria, she wouldn’t be high on my list of recruits.”