“He was not elected to transform the country.” “Over the last year, the White House has allowed the left to hijack and misinterpret the rationale for Biden’s election,” said one former Democratic official in regular touch with the President, speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about the West Wing. By his own admission, Biden finds the place stifling and regularly spends three nights a week elsewhere.Įven as top advisers and longtime friends of Biden try to help reset a floundering presidency, recriminations have quietly surfaced inside the West Wing about the fundamental causes of the challenges.Ī considerable share of finger-pointing is aimed at deep divisions among Democrats and how some top officials have sought to accommodate progressives in hopes of keeping peace inside the party. On a personal level, just adjusting to life in the White House has been a struggle. And after declaring “independence from the virus” on the South Lawn in July, Biden is contemplating Covid’s permanent presence going forward. Overseas, a full-blown conflict now looms with Moscow just six months after coming face-to-face with the Russian leader in an old villa in Geneva. RELATED: Battered White House searches for a Biden comeback scenario But his inaugural speech pledge to “end this uncivil war” remains unfulfilled.īiden’s trademark personal style - wielded over breakfasts in Delaware, inside caucus rooms on Capitol Hill and across the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office - hasn’t brought around holdout Democrats to some of his boldest ideas, let alone many Republicans. Unlike Trump, Biden is not actively stoking the anger. You can’t jawbone that,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser in former President Barack Obama’s White House and a CNN senior political commentator. “There are successes that he’s had, but people do not feel it and you can’t persuade people to feel better.
So entrenched is the anger that one father felt comfortable blurting out a coded derogatory phrase about Biden when he was speaking to the President on the phone last Christmas Eve - while his own son watched on. Americans are misbehaving on airplanes, in school board meetings and at grocery stores. A “malaise” has sunk in as the pandemic persists, his vice president conceded in an interview this month. Yet for all that, the country remains fractured and irritable. He has appointed more federal judges than his recent predecessors, overseen a boom in hiring, a drop in poverty and orchestrated a nationwide vaccination campaign. He successfully guided passage of trillions in new funding to combat the coronavirus pandemic and rebuild American’s crumbling infrastructure through Congress. The 12 months Biden has been in office did come with major victories. The President has worked to make the place his own, installing his family’s furniture, ordering up chocolate ice cream bars branded with the presidential seal and returning to traditions his predecessor abandoned. On most days since January 20, 2021, the President has arrived at the Oval Office early in the morning, peppered his team with detailed questions and tried not to think too much about the man who’d just vacated the building, leaving behind a pandemic, angry divisions and - inside a drawer of the Resolute Desk - a lengthy letter for Biden.
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