Biden in History

Summary

History As It Happens: "Biden in History" – Detailed Summary

Release Date: January 21, 2025
Host: Martin DeCaro
Guest: Jeremy Suri, Historian, University of Texas at Austin

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Introduction

In the January 21, 2025 episode titled "Biden in History," host Martin DeCaro engages in an in-depth conversation with historian Jeremy Suri to assess the legacy of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. As Biden steps aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee after a single, tumultuous term, the episode explores his policies, leadership style, and the consequential impact of his presidency on both domestic and international fronts.

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Biden's Early Presidency and Goals

The episode opens with reflections on Biden's inauguration, marking the culmination of a long political career. Biden entered office amid significant challenges:

• Democracy Under Threat: At [00:41], Biden emphasizes the fragility of democracy, stating, "democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. ... democracy has prevailed."

• Vision for Unity: In his inaugural address, Biden aspired to "bring America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation," aiming to restore traditions and stability after the chaotic Trump era ([03:33]).

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Domestic Policies and Achievements

Bidenomics

Biden introduced "bidenomics" as his economic blueprint, focusing on job creation and strengthening the American heartland. At [04:44], he declares, "American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are... That's bidenomics."

Child Poverty Reduction

One of Biden’s early legislative successes was a significant reduction in child poverty. As Jeremy Suri notes at [43:18], "Joe Biden's early legislation cut the child poverty rate in the United States in half," a milestone not seen since the 1960s. This achievement underscores Biden's commitment to social welfare programs, emphasizing long-term benefits for children's well-being.

Healthcare and Education

Biden aimed to expand healthcare accessibility and eliminate student debt. Although these initiatives faced substantial opposition and did not fully materialize, they represented key components of his agenda to enhance social security and educational opportunities.

Legislative Efforts and Challenges

Biden's ambitious "Build Back Better" plan sought comprehensive reforms across various sectors:

• COVID-19 Relief: The American Rescue Plan provided critical pandemic relief in March 2021.

• Infrastructure and Climate: Bipartisan infrastructure bills, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act marked significant legislative milestones.

However, despite these efforts, many social policies, including universal preschool and childcare support, stalled due to congressional divisions and opposition from figures like Senator Joe Manchin ([05:01], [05:08], [44:00]).

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Foreign Policy

Afghanistan Withdrawal

Biden's decision to end the long-standing war in Afghanistan was a pivotal moment. At [05:23], Biden announces, "the United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps," followed by an additional troop deployment to Afghanistan. The subsequent chaotic withdrawal in August 2021 resulted in significant loss of life and damaged Biden's approval ratings ([05:37], [06:03]).

Support for Israel and Gaza Conflict

Biden's unwavering support for Israel has been both lauded and criticized:

• Empathy and Support: After the 2023 Hamas attacks, Biden visited Israel, expressing solidarity: "We're so proud that you, the President of the United States came here to Israel to support this country" ([13:40]).

• Palestinian Concerns: Despite advocating for a rules-based international order, Biden faced backlash for not adequately addressing Palestinian humanitarian crises, leading to accusations of complicity in Gaza's destruction ([14:26]).

Ukraine and Russia

Biden played a crucial role in rallying NATO and supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. While his administration provided substantial resources to Ukraine, the long-term outcomes remain uncertain:

• NATO Strengthening: Biden's efforts enhanced NATO's cohesion, including the integration of Finland and Sweden ([53:00]).

• Negotiation Challenges: The absence of a viable peace agreement for Ukraine leaves Biden's legacy in this area open to future historical assessment ([53:00]).

China Policy

Biden continued a confrontational stance toward China, maintaining and even escalating tariffs while promoting semiconductor manufacturing within the U.S. The CHIPS Act aimed to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains, although its effectiveness is debated ([54:34], [56:42]).

Democracy Promotion

Biden sought to advance a global agenda promoting democracy over autocracy. However, historian Jeremy Suri critiques this effort, noting a lack of substantial progress and inconsistencies in policy application ([58:43]).

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Leadership Style and Communication

Biden's leadership style has been characterized by:

• Storytelling and Vision: Attempts to embody the role of a unifying storyteller, drawing parallels to presidents like FDR and Reagan ([27:36], [30:29]).

• Communication Challenges: Increasingly criticized for deteriorating communication skills, apparent in his farewell address struggles and perceived as a "frail, grandfatherly figure" ([34:26], [34:56]).

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Approval Ratings and Electoral Challenges

Biden's approval ratings experienced a decline throughout his term, peaking at 43% post-Afghanistan withdrawal and dropping to 36% after a contentious debate with Donald Trump ([06:03], [10:39]). His decision to seek re-election despite his advancing age and declining communication effectiveness contributed to electoral setbacks, allowing Trump’s return to the White House to be interpreted as a referendum on Biden’s presidency ([35:10], [36:38]).

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Historical Assessments and Legacy

Assessing Biden’s legacy remains complex:

• Policy Consequences: Much of Biden's policy impact, such as infrastructure investments and semiconductor manufacturing, will require decades to fully evaluate ([17:55], [19:03]).

• Comparative Legacy: Comparisons to past presidents like Harry Truman highlight the difficulty of immediate assessments, with long-term evaluations needed to determine Biden's true historical significance ([02:53], [19:03]).

• Unfulfilled Agenda: Despite legislative successes, many of Biden's ambitious social policies did not materialize, leaving gaps in his legacy ([40:12], [45:11]).

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Conclusion

"Biden in History" encapsulates the multifaceted and often contentious nature of President Joe Biden's single term. While achieving notable successes in areas like child poverty reduction and infrastructure, Biden's presidency is marred by challenges in foreign policy, legislative stumbles, and declining public approval. As historian Jeremy Suri posits, the true measure of Biden's legacy will unfold over the coming decades, shaped by the enduring consequences of his policies and the evolving landscape of American and global politics.

Notable Quotes:

• Joe Biden [00:41]: "democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. ... democracy has prevailed."
• Joe Biden [04:44]: "American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are... That's bidenomics."
• Joe Biden [13:40]: "We're so proud that you, the President of the United States came here to Israel to support this country."
• Joe Biden [31:46]: "We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history."

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a crucial starting point for understanding the complexities of Biden's presidency. As the nation transitions to a new administration, the historical ramifications of Biden's policies and leadership will continue to be a subject of analysis and debate among scholars, policymakers, and the public alike.

Transcript

[Joe Biden]

In history.

[Martin DeCaro]

It's the decisions made today that shape tomorrow.

[Joe Biden]

So don't wait.

[Martin DeCaro]

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[Jeremy Suri]

History as it happens January 21, 2025 Biden in history.

[Joe Biden]

We've learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed. I think we're in a contest not with China per se, but a context with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world. There's been a suicide bombing, a Kabul airport in Afghanistan where crowds were gathered.

[Martin DeCaro]

War in Ukraine has begun just minutes after Russian President Vladimir More than 700 Israelis are now feared dead after unprecedented.

[Joe Biden]

Attacks by Hamas, more than 1,000 civilians slaughtered, among them at least 14American citizens.

[Jeremy Suri]

A stalled democratic agenda, a chaotic exit.

[Joe Biden]

From Afghanistan, inflation at a 40 year high, and Covid frustration, all contributing to sagging poll numbers making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the. With the COVID excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with.

[Martin DeCaro]

President Biden will step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

[Jeremy Suri]

Joseph R. Biden's very long political career is over. His presidency lasted one term. It was eventful, it was difficult. But will it prove consequential? Is it possible to even begin assessing his legacy as he departs the office he coveted for decades before entering the White House four years ago? Let's give it a try next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, the most obvious is that we really aren't in a position to judge a president because we don't know the outcomes, we don't know the consequences of what he has done. The example people point to all the time, which is correct, is that Harry Truman left office a very, very unpopular president in early 1953. He felt he had been renounced with the election of Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican to succeed. But today, if you look at any list of top historians commenting on top presidents, we generally put Truman pretty high.

[Joe Biden]

I, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Do solemnly swear. I, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Do Solemnly Swear that I will faithfully execute that.

[Jeremy Suri]

I will faithfully execute January 20, 2021.

[Joe Biden]

United States Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability. Will, to the best of my ability.

[Jeremy Suri]

Made a pandemic that would kill hundreds of thousands more Americans. As the stench of the January 6 riot hung over the Capitol, Joe Biden reached the pinnacle of his political career.

[Joe Biden]

Congratulations, Mr. President.

[Jeremy Suri]

Winning the office that had always eluded him, that he had apparently given up on when he decided not to run for president back in 2016.

[Joe Biden]

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause.

[Jeremy Suri]

The 78 year old's breath of fresh air soon went stale. Joseph Biden entered the White House hoping to unite the country after the chaotic Trump years. He made strengthening democracy at home and abroad his purpose.

[Joe Biden]

So let's get together and demonstrate to our great great grandchildren when they read about us that democracy, democracy, democracy functions and works. And together there's nothing we can't do.

[Jeremy Suri]

And he and the Democrats pursued an agenda that historian Adam Tooze, writing in the London Review, describes as radical and comprehensive as anything seen in American politics since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. What they lacked, he says, was a broad base. In con speech here in Chicago today, President Biden introduced Americans to a term.

[Martin DeCaro]

You'Re going to hear a lot known as bidenomics.

[Jeremy Suri]

It's the President's economic plan.

[Martin DeCaro]

As a nation, I believe that every.

[Joe Biden]

American willing to work hard should be able to get a job no matter where they are, in the heartland, in small towns, in every part of this country, to raise their kids on a good paycheck and keep their roots where they grew up. That's bidenomics.

[Jeremy Suri]

Biden was right to end the endless war in Afghanistan, a war he inherited not from one or two, but three administrations.

[Joe Biden]

On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps. And as commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

[Jeremy Suri]

The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. But the withdrawal's bloody conclusion in August 2021 damaged the President suicide bombing at.

[Joe Biden]

Kabul airport in Afghanistan.

[Martin DeCaro]

Terror is gripping Afghanistan now as a number of US Service members have been killed.

[Joe Biden]

Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been, preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.

[Jeremy Suri]

His approval rating in the mid to upper 50s when he took office, dropped to 43% after Afghanistan and never rose above 50% for the rest of his presidency. The low point was July 2024, 36%, the month after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump, which was, in retrospect, the end.

[Joe Biden]

So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.

[Jeremy Suri]

In this episode we will begin to assess the one term presidency of Joseph R. Biden. My guest will be historian Jeremy Suri of the University of Texas at Austin. He is the co host of this is Democracy podcast and the mind behind Democracy of Hope on Substack, that is a daily newsletter. Jeremy will be here in a moment, but keep in mind we won't cover everything. We can't possibly cover every aspect of Biden's presidency, of his long career in Washington. Out of respect for your time, I don't produce three or six hour podcasts. So consider our conversation a starting point for assessing the past four years and the potential consequences of what Joe Biden accomplished and his failings. Speaking of his long career, the youngest.

[Martin DeCaro]

New face in the US Senate next year will be that of Democrat Joseph Biden of Delaware. So young, in fact, that at the time of his election on November 7, Biden was not yet old enough to serve. Yesterday.

[Jeremy Suri]

The year is 1972. The US is still in Vietnam, Nixon's in the White House, Watergate was yet to come. ABC newsman Bob Clark profiled a 30 year old first term senator from Delaware in Washington today.

[Joe Biden]

He was having trouble convincing some people he really is a senator and having some doubts about the Senate seniority system while hoping older members won't hold his age against him. I expect these fellows are going to eventually judge me on my merit, not of my age, and I have to establish that merit, assuming there is any there. I don't think it's going to be much of a problem.

[Jeremy Suri]

And Biden would produce many memorable moments from his Senate seat, as when he chaired the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Robert Bork, the last such nominee to be voted down in a full Senate floor vote.

[Joe Biden]

I argued that the way in which this unstructured, undefined right of privacy that Justice Douglas elaborated that the way he did it did not prove its existence. Can you tell me you've been a professor now for years and years. Everybody's pointed out and I've observed you're one of the most well read and scholarly people to come before this committee in all your short life. Have you come up with any other way to protect a married couple under the Constitution against an action by a government telling them what they can or cannot do about birth control control in their bedroom. Is there any constitutional right anywhere in the Constitution? I assume I have never engaged in that exercise. I passed on. What I was doing was criticizing a doctrine the Supreme Court was creating which was capable of being applied in unknown ways in the futures, in unprincipled ways. Let me say something about Griswold against Connecticut. Connecticut never tried to prosecute any married couple.

[Jeremy Suri]

That same year, 1987, Joe Biden ended his first unsuccessful run for the White House after plagiarism allegations sank his candidacy.

[Joe Biden]

And quite frankly, I think there's. You'll all be the judge and the people be the judge. I think there's much ado about nothing. I noticed that when I, when I stand up, I watched two of my presidential contenders stand there and say what all of you have heard me say first. And I think only that we have a chance to bend history. If you go back and look at the announcement speeches of other candidates, you'll see they said bend history. Haven't you heard anybody say that but me, I'm not running around saying they shouldn't say they can bend history. They're going to bend history if they want to bend history. In the marketplace of ideas, in the political realm, the notion that every thought or notion or idea you'd have to go back and find and attribute to someone, I think is, quite frankly, ludicrous.

[Jeremy Suri]

And Senator Biden would become known for his many gaffes, tall tales, exaggerations and bluster. After eight years as Barack Obama's vice president, Biden headed into what looked like his retirement from politics. But he returned in 2020 to stop Donald Trump. Today, Trump is back in the White House in no small part because of Biden's missteps, none more obvious than his delusional decision to seek a second term despite his visible decline, dropping out only after Democratic elites exerted intense pressure following that embarrassing debate in late June. 20.

[Joe Biden]

Sure that all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the, with the COVID excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with. Look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump. Well, he's right. He did beat Medicaid.

[Jeremy Suri]

Beat it to death. What is strange about Biden's poor approval ratings and they are in the mid-30s is the country today, despite significant long running problems, is not in bad shape. As Adam Tooze writes in the London Review, allowing for the scale of the COVID shock, the macroeconomic record of the Biden administration could hardly be better. And given the lack of major social policies, macroeconomics has been the chief tonic for American society. The huge surge in unemployment during the pandemic could have been a disaster for working class Americans. Tew says. Thanks to open handed fiscal and monetary policy, it has been the opposite. As growth in the US has pushed ahead of other advanced economies, the labor market has run hot. Though inflation has hurt, the wages of those in low pay sectors have surged, creating the most dramatic reduction in inequality in decades. According to Adam Tooze. Legislatively, Congress passed the American rescue plan in March 2021. That was Covid relief. A bipartisan infrastructure bill followed the CHIPS act and a major climate bill and the poorly named inflation Reduction Act. Inflation did eventually abate as the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy. But high prices may have been the single biggest reason why Biden's reelection chances were so poor. Even before the debate debacle. High inflation and chaos at the southern border.

[Joe Biden]

And so there's a lot to be done. And think about it, even back in days when it's so easy to demagogue this issue, it's so easy to demagogue it. And you hear, you know, a number of our friends, the MAGA Republicans talking about, you know, they don't even want me speaking English anymore. They want me speaking da da da. They're going to, they're going to take over my community, my name, they, they, whoever they are at the time.

[Jeremy Suri]

Now, in foreign policy, we've already mentioned Afghanistan. The following year, Russia invaded Ukraine and Biden rallied NATO.

[Joe Biden]

Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war and now he and his country will bear the consequences.

[Jeremy Suri]

In 2023, after Hamas attackers murdered more than a thousand Israeli civilians, the bloodiest single day in modern Israel's history, the President made a memorable visit. He met the Israeli war cabinet and embraced medics and other first responders, exhibiting the empathy that won over American voters in 2020.

[Joe Biden]

We're so proud that you, the President of the United States came here to Israel to support this country. You uplifted the whole spirit in this country and all the Jewish people in world. So I want to thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, thank you.

[Jeremy Suri]

There would be almost no empathy for Palestinians. President Biden refused to exercise US Leverage to stop Israel's destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza, even after the International Criminal Court charged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes. In this recent interview with msnbc, Biden basically admitted he knew Israel was violating international law by indiscriminately bombing civilian areas with US Weapons.

[Joe Biden]

When I went to Israel immediately after their attack by Hamas eight days later, whatever it was, and I told him we were going to help, I said, but Bibi, I said, you can't be carpet bombing these communities. And he said to me, well, you did it, you carpet bomb. Not his exact words, but you carpet bombed Berlin, you drafted nuclear weapons, you killed thousands of innocent people because you had to in order to win a war. I said, but that's why we came up with the UN New deals by which what we do relative to civilians and military. So he was comparing 21st century war tactics, battle tactics, with World War II. Well, what he was really doing was he was going after me for saying, you can't indiscriminately bomb civilian areas.

[Jeremy Suri]

The President's unconditional support of Israel probably cost Kamala Harris some votes, although it is hard to say how many, or whether Gaza was decisive in her electoral defeat. Politics aside, history will not hide Biden's record here. For all his talk of preserving the rules based international order, I think we're.

[Joe Biden]

In a contest not with China per se, but a context with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world.

[Jeremy Suri]

The Biden administration was hardly consistent in the way it applied these principles. And for all his genuine concern about the Trumpian threat to democracy, the MAGA.

[Joe Biden]

Republicans don't just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They're a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people.

[Jeremy Suri]

Joseph Biden, now 82 years old, is a good deal responsible for Trump's return. At least this is how it all looks now. Maybe in a few years or a few decades, his presidency will look better or even worse. What will matter is what will endure. Many, if not most, US Presidents have not been transformative figures. Many do not leave a consequential legacy. For now, Biden's time in the White House, we can say, has ended on an unsettling note as he issued a string of preemptive pardons, including to members of his own family, even though none was convicted of a crime. Thus they are preemptive pardons. And what kind of democratic norm is this? Jeremy Suri, welcome back again.

[Martin DeCaro]

Always good to be with you, Martin.

[Jeremy Suri]

This is your 26th appearance, not that I'm counting. I actually had to go back into the database of all my episodes, going all the way Back to, well, January 2021, I launched Endeavor 26 appearances on the podcast over the past four years. You might be leading the league.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, you know, I do a lot of interviews, of course, but I particularly enjoy our conversations because I can always rip you about how bad the jets are. So that's true. Makes my day.

[Jeremy Suri]

Even when the season is over.

[Martin DeCaro]

So even when my packers have lost a heartbreaking game to the Eagles.

[Jeremy Suri]

A lot of people in the city where I reside, Washington, D.C. 95% Democrat or something like that, are heartbroken over what's about to happen. Donald Trump's second inauguration. But we're about to discuss the man he is succeeding, Joe Biden, his one term in office, the job he always coveted during his very long career here in Washington as a historian. Jeremy, what are the problems or obstacles in assessing a president's legacy or the consequences of his ideas and policies right as it's ending?

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, the most obvious is that we really aren't in a position to judge a president because we don't know the outcomes, we don't know the consequences of what he has done. The example people point to all the time, which is correct, is that Harry Truman left office a very, very unpopular president in early 1953. He felt he had been renounced with the election of Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, to succeed him. But today, if you look at any list of top historians commenting on top presidents, we generally put Truman pretty high because, you know, there's some things he did that worked out pretty well. The creation of NATO, the Marshall Plan. Right. Even the management of the Korean War, as unpopular as that was at the time. So we don't know the effects of a president's policies until long after that president has left office. For example, in Biden's case, one of his big initiatives was investment in infrastructure that's only really just begun. We can't judge whether that money was spent well and whether it contributed to a renaissance in American manufacturing, as he claims, or just more inflation and more waste. We'll have to assess that probably in five to ten years.

[Jeremy Suri]

The chips act as well. Trying to do semiconductor manufacturing here in the United States that does take time and is, of course, susceptible to being reversed or minimized by his successor. It's hard to have policies that endure. You need to have a Congress that's on your side as well, as FDR did and the Democratic Party did, not just during FDR's terms, but for basically a quarter century or more afterward. There's so much to unpack here. I'm with you. It's hard to assess a president right after he leaves office or even in the years after he leaves office. Sometimes it takes decades because documents. Right. You do tons of research as a scholar, documents become available, and all of a sudden, oh, wait, we gotta look at this differently now, right?

[Martin DeCaro]

Absolutely. I mean, there are a lot of things that happen, the nuts and bolts that contribute to the way we judge the individual. So the war in Ukraine, for example. There are lots of really important discussions that have occurred between President Biden and foreign leaders and between Secretary of State Blinken and foreign leaders. Same in the middle EAS least. It's not just the outcome of those conflicts that matters. It's also how the United States managed those conflicts, the relationships that were built. And we won't really understand that until we get into those documents. And, Martin, that's 20 to 30 years. That's not even five to 10 years.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yeah. If ever. Some documents are never declassified.

[Martin DeCaro]

That's correct. Now, some email messages are hard to reconstruct.

[Jeremy Suri]

It's harder to get rid of a piece of paper, I guess, although you can just throw it in a fireplace.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, but the thing we find as historians, most paper is made in multiple copies. So it used to be the world of carbon. For some of your older listeners, they'll remember typing with carbon paper. It's very hard, actually to get rid of paper because multiple copies are made. Electronic materials are a bit more ephemeral.

[Jeremy Suri]

I feel the same way about digital audio versus the way I was taught to use carts and reel to reel. When I got into the radio business in 1997, you know, great thing about our founding fathers, they wrote everything down. They wrote pamphlets, they wrote letters. They did all of that. We still have that record. You know, on this note, when we might begin to accurately assess a president's administration, there are some things we can draw conclusions about, not final ones. Isn't that a contradiction in terms? We can't draw a final conclusion. Then it's not a conclusion. But, you know, Watergate, right. Nixon, at the time, we knew this was a disaster. It does take decades to see the full import or the full consequences. And we know today that, yes, Watergate still does matter. It still weighs very heavily on our politics. But at the time, we knew that Nixon's presidency was a disaster in many respects. Not entirely, but in many respects, yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

I think that's right. But what we didn't understand at the time, that we've Only just begun to understand in the last 10 to 15 years are the ways in which Watergate affected foreign policy. I'll give you one example from my own research and writing. We learned about a decade ago, when we had access to materials, despite Henry Kissinger's insistence otherwise, that Nixon missed some key meetings where decisions were made about raising the nuclear alert in the Middle east during the 1973 war. So here you have Secretary of State and Henry Kissinger raising America's nuclear alert to warn the Soviet Union not to get involved in the war without consulting the President of the United States. It's unconstitutional and it has a real effect upon American foreign policy. Now, I'm not saying that was good or bad. That's for readers and listeners to judge. But we didn't know that. We didn't know that the Nixon line was that Watergate never affected foreign policy. We are finding in the documents that it really did. So that's an example of how our perspective changes as we get more information.

[Jeremy Suri]

So you used a term there. Whether it's good or bad, when it comes to historical analysis, I think people want to say a president's good, bad, evil, great, whatever they can. But when it comes to historical analysis, I think it's more fruitful to think in terms of consequences or whether a president's policies, ideas, the tone he sets is consequential. What matters is what endures. I'm not being a chicken here, you know, trying to skirt the debate over whether a policy works or does not, but that's political. I think when it comes to historical analysis, consequential is better. Do you agree?

[Martin DeCaro]

I agree 100%. The word we use as historians is agency. Did the individual actually change the structure and change the nature of what happened around them? It's not different from how we think about sports, right? Did this player change the game? Are they someone who was able to change the outcome because of a pass or a catch or a tackle? And so that means that a lot of what presidents do that looks really meaningful when you're reading about it the day of, turns out to be less meaningful historically. And some of the things that might be ignored actually turn out to be more meaningful historically. So an example of this is many of the efforts by Ronald Reagan to put pressure on the Soviet Union to release Pentecostals and Jewish refuseniks and other things that was not always covered in the public. But it turns out, at least historians would say, some of whom you've had on your show, that that turned out to be more consequential in putting pressure on Gorbachev than some of the speeches like the Evil Empire speech, which might not have actually had that much consequence in the behavior of the Soviet Union.

[Jeremy Suri]

Well, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Referring to speeches, Reagan's speech, tear down this wall, had no effect on that outcome at all. But it makes for good audio and storytelling. You know, nothing endures like a storytelling.

[Joe Biden]

Tear down this wall.

[Jeremy Suri]

You know about the pressure on the Soviet Union with Jimmy Carter's passing. I discussed this. I know you have as well in your substack and on your show. Carter put pressure on the Soviets when it came to, well, the Helsinki Final act in the 1970s, respect for human rights. Carter wasn't around to see that bear fruit, but he was also instrumental in helping bring down the Iron Curtain, I guess.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, the Helsinki act of 1975, which included agreements by the Soviet Union to maintain certain human rights protections as well as what the Soviets really wanted was a guarantee of borders in Eastern Europe. That agreement, which actually grew out of a set of European negotiations, was initially opposed by both Nixon and Carter. They came to Kissinger, came to later follow along with it because his European allies wanted it. Carter later said it was a good idea. But they both, initially, Kissinger and Carter and Nixon as well, opposed it.

[Joe Biden]

It.

[Martin DeCaro]

But it then had this huge effect in empowering dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel and others. So that's another example of unintended consequences on Carter. People forget that Jimmy Carter was the one who initially provided aid to the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan in 1979, 1980. Reagan upped that age, but Carter was a hardliner. Carter also refused to send American athletes to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. So if you look back, you'll find Carter was often criticized for being too much of a hardliner, as well as being a soft liner, depending on which side of the aisle you were on.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yeah, he started the military buildup, increases in defense spending. Deregulation accelerated under Carter. Don't tell the editors of the National Review that Ronald Reagan owes some of his success to Jimmy Carter.

[Martin DeCaro]

But this is like FDR and Hoover. You can find certain elements of the New Deal, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in early Hoover policies.

[Jeremy Suri]

And there are always continuities, which makes this task difficult. And you know, we are flying at 35,000ft here. We're a little bit esoteric, but we'll, we'll get to Biden specifically in a bit. One more item on that note. Structures versus individuals. Larger impersonal forces of history that are outside the ability of any individual to influence. I think that makes the job of a historian very, very difficult.

[Martin DeCaro]

And I think it's one of the ways you can differentiate some historians from others. And you've had so many wonderful historians on your show. And I think every one of us would say something slightly different on this. I tend to be more of a structuralist, even though I've written biographies and things of that sort, because I believe that human beings are shaped much more by their circumstances than they realize. Just where you started this show so well, people end up in places they don't expect to be, not because of their agency or their planning, but because of the circumstances that bring them there. Joe Biden tried so hard to become president in prior election cycles. He thought he had failed. He thought he was done after the Obama administration. And then, lo and behold, the opportunity arose and he became president when he probably least expected it. And I think that's significant, and that will shape his presidency. Biden was shaped in his four years in office as much, if not more by the circumstances of our time than what he wanted to do. This was the whole point of my book, the Impossible President Presidency. Actually.

[Jeremy Suri]

Nice plug there, but great segue. Great segue because we're going to get into Biden right now. As you say, he decided to come out of retirement, if you will, and run for president because of what he saw happened in. Well, this is what he said because of what happened in Charlottesville. He said he wanted to save or fix or rescue the soul of America.

[Joe Biden]

He said there were, quote, some very fine people on both sides, very flying people on both sides. With those words, the president, United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those of the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen.

[Jeremy Suri]

And I remember his inaugural address back in January 2021, where you get to set the tone for the next four years. He talked about these more intangible themes, if you will, the direction of the country. Isn't that like all presidents, right? They want to come in and maybe change the vibe in the country. Jimmy Carter after Watergate, Barack Obama after President Bush and the Iraq War.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, of course, every president wants to place his mark on the era. And every president believes he's elected because he brings a tone, a vibe, as you said, to be, to use the terms that people use today, that the individual is bringing a sense to the time that others didn't and organizational theorists will say this is important. Organizational culture does to some extent, start from the top. But Biden, of course, was doing this in a moment of real crisis. George H.W. bush, for example, is in a sense, much more trying to carry forward Reagan's vibe, Reagan's tenor. Even George W. Bush to some extent is carrying forward Clinton's. The country's in a very prosperous space when George W. Bush takes office. But this was a case where Joe Biden was trying to make the argument that we had gone off the rails, that we had had leadership that had taken us away from what had been our tried and true practices, our tried and true attitudes and values, and he was going to bring us back. I see Biden's at least initial presidency as actually quite conservative. Right, lowercase C in the sense of saying he's going to restore traditions. The wrong people have been in charge of the house, the parents are back home, and we're going to restore order in the house.

[Jeremy Suri]

Some would say he wanted to revert or restore a world, a country that doesn't exist anymore. You know, we'll get into that. You know, my question, I didn't phrase it so well because I do want to hear my leaders talk about those big, more intangible or esoteric themes about the course of American history and, you know, as he would say, the soul of our democracy or the soul of our nation. But you can get in trouble, too, because that's a lot to do. That's almost maybe an impossible task. And I'm not sure Biden succeeded. I'm not sure anyone can succeed in this hyper polarized, hyper partisan time.

[Martin DeCaro]

I think that's right. But I also think there's an opportunity there. Right. Presidents are storytellers. The best presidents were storytellers in their personal lives and in their public presentation. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan. They're storytellers. You can tell a story that helps people to imagine a different kind of world, and you can get it out of one side versus another. Let's go back to the inaugural address that Ted Sorensen wrote for John F. Kennedy. Right. In some ways, it's so nonpartisan, it is abstract. But this notion that we will pay any price, bear any burden, right. For the cause of liberty.

[Jeremy Suri]

Twilight struggle.

[Joe Biden]

Now the trumpet summons us again. Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need, not as a call to battle, though in battle we are, but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, a Struggle against the common enemies of man, tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

[Martin DeCaro]

And then, you know, back to Lincoln's first inaugural address. The mystic chords of memory and the ways in which we will come together on the landscape. This land that brings us together, even though we're from such different places. I do think Reagan's shining city on a hill, which of course goes back to John Winthrop. You can help people to imagine a different world. You can transport them. Maybe that's the. In the 21st century, the Hollywood version of this. What bothers me, what concerns me, is it's much easier to just divide people, always easier to get people angry than it is to come up with a story that brings people together. But that is the job of a.

[Jeremy Suri]

President, of a leader, not necessarily knowing policy details. Right. Although that can help. But, you know, in terms of style, I think Biden was a bad storyteller, ultimately, his presidency, and use the term abstract, I think that's better than intangible. So thank you there for helping me out. Jeremy Surrey, Ultimately, his presidency was judged not just on abstractions, but on material things. The price of eggs, gasoline, inflation, or also another abstraction talking in circles here. But the vibe, right, the vibe in the country actually didn't feel all that good in the past year, despite the macroeconomic numbers being good. That's very difficult for a president to overcome when there's just a feeling in the country that things aren't going well.

[Martin DeCaro]

I think that's true. And inflation has a particular way of hitting people hard, especially when you're coming off the anxiety and the disruption of the pandemic. We forget we tend to bracket these things, but actually they're deeply interconnected. But I do think, Martin, all this comes back to storytelling because I think in some ways the country has been doing very well. And I think we as historians will say that, especially if we have a real dip following a series of tariffs and trade wars and immigration deportations in the next few years. But Biden wasn't able to help people to feel that. Donald Trump, who never went away, of course, was very good at stoking the anger and grievances. So it's sort of like you're in a family and no family is perfect, but things are going pretty well within your family. But you've got a neighbor who's constantly, when people leave the house, telling them, you know what your brother said, you know what your sister said, right? And very quickly, this stable family, almost Iago, like in Shakespeare's Othello, right? This stable family can be torn apart because the story is not about our stability and the things that are going well. We become obsessed with the things that are not going well. And I have to say, I came of age watching Joe Biden as a middle aged politician who was considered a good communicator. Right. His problem was he was copying other people's words.

[Jeremy Suri]

Right. Talking too much too. But go ahead.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. And I think the tragedy is. And again, the family metaphor works here. His health took a real decline in office. It's unpredictable when this happens with people. And he came in as a mediocre communicator in his 70s, and he's leaving in his 80s as a terrible communicator. Just watching the Farewell address. He has trouble reading a teleprompter. He's done this for 50 years. This should be like, you know, drinking a coffee for him. He's having the decline that we've all seen with our grandparents.

[Jeremy Suri]

I was gonna say riding a bicycle, but didn't he fall off a bicycle at one point during his prosaka?

[Martin DeCaro]

I mean, and this is. I mean, this is not to criticize him. This is the criticism I would have was his not recognizing how this would affect his leadership and certainly trying to run again when he shouldn't have run again.

[Jeremy Suri]

Huge part of his legacy will be, and who knows how people will feel about this in 50 years, but for now, his decision to seek another term. You know, when I was preparing my questions for you and going over my notes, and now we're talking here, it sounds as if Biden lost to Trump in the election. As far as I'm concerned, he did. I mean, he dropped out, obviously belatedly, and handed it off to Kamala Harris. But I did see Trump's win as a referendum on Biden's presidency, among other things. Biden spent four years telling Americans we are facing an existential threat to democracy. Jeremy, did that argument land? Did it persuade? I don't see how we can say yes, given the outcome last minute.

[Martin DeCaro]

No, obviously not. Biden made the case, I think, compellingly that many of the things Trump did would be perilous to our democracy. Checks and balances, limits on presidential power, basic morality, basic assumptions of serving the public interest, not your own self interest in your own companies. There really wasn't any effective factual response. It's not that voters don't care. I actually think they do care, but they care more about economic issues. They care more about someone understanding how they feel. I think if you compare these two men, I don't think There are many people who actually think Biden is a bad person. That's the propaganda you hear on the right. I think there are people who believe Biden is out of touch and Kamala Harris is out of touch, and they believe that Donald Trump is more in touch with them, even if they don't like many elements of what Trump does.

[Jeremy Suri]

And this was part of the problem with Biden's vision. I do want to get to his vision next was he was running, as you said before, to restore what we had. But Americans don't really want what we had, the establishment, because it has failed them, institutions that have failed them. He wanted to take us back to this, really. It's Biden's upbringing. He was a New Deal liberal. Those days are long over. The last 30 years of American experience has seen a steady decline in public confidence and with good reason in all number of institutions, the news media, government agencies, the Pentagon, you name it. Right. So when it comes to Trump as a threat to democracy, a lot of Americans are saying, you know, our democracy, our form of capitalism has already failed us.

[Martin DeCaro]

I think that's right. And actually, I think American voters, even though I disagree with many of them and how they vote, I think there was a rationality to this, which is to say that they believed that Biden did not understand how the world had changed, that his vision was now archaic, not relevant to them, and so he would speak about bringing back manufacturing jobs and stuff, and they didn't recognize that as actually addressing their concerns. What they saw with Donald Trump, even though the rhetoric is about make America great again going back, it's actually about embracing new ways of doing things, some of which are dangerous, some of which flagrantly challenge democracy. But the man is trying to do new things. We are in a radical moment. Every country around the world, there were 60 elections in 2024, and almost every one of them incumbents lost to characters, some crazy, some not crazy, who said, we can't go on as we've gone on, we have to do something different. And you know, that's not wrong. We can't go on in Los Angeles after these fires the way we've gone on. We can't go on with climate the way we've gone, and we can't go on in Ukraine like this forever. So that argument lands, and Biden seemed shallow in response to that.

[Jeremy Suri]

Manufacturing has made somewhat of a comeback, some people might even say made a very strong comeback under Biden. But it's still only a small portion of our economy.

[Martin DeCaro]

Biden had Some ideas and pieces of a powerful vision. And he started there. Right. One of the things he was saying was that we have to go further in using federal power to provide people with more of a social safety net, to increase access to health insurance, to make it more affordable to go to college and not have debt ridden students, things of that sort, to invest in infrastructure, public transportation. These are old ideas, but he wanted to take them further. He also had a vision which said our country should be more inclusive of women, of minorities, of various others. There's a more multicultural vision, more open to LGBTQ communities. Right. Things he's later mocked for. The problem is this vision remained in pieces and it always felt like it was one group versus another. So if he's gonna help lgbtq, those who are not LGBTQ plus feel they're being left out. And that second step where you have the pieces of the plot, but you put the plot together and you make everyone feel like they're going to benefit. So here's what he didn't. Here's how you, as a white man, Martin, are going to benefit from what I'm doing for immigrants from Mexico. Here's how you, as a white man, are gonna benefit, even though you already have health insurance, from what I'm doing to give health insurance to communities that don't have it. That's what was missing. Everyone needs to feel they're a stakeholder in this vision. And many people did not, because he did not articulate it, that I agree.

[Jeremy Suri]

He did have a vision. Historian Adam Tooze, writing in the London Review, the agenda of the Democrats in 2021 was as radical and comprehensive as anything seen in American politics since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. Tew says what they lacked was a broad base in Congress. So returning to Biden's inaugural and when he's entering office, the stench of January 6th is still hanging over the country. People, it seemed at the time, had had it with Donald Trump. They were disgusted. I saw that as a moment. Moment for our country to come together and work on legislation that would endure to fill the holes that were exposed in American capitalism by the pandemic. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And I do believe Biden saw himself walking in the footsteps of FDR and Lyndon Johnson. And he did want to advance an agenda that would comprehensively deal with these problems. And. And his first pieces of legislation did make some progress there, but ultimately, I think it foundered on the numbers. There simply weren't enough people in Congress to do another New Deal. If you will. Which I think even though we weren't dealing with a Great Depression, I think we do need something like that again to reorient the relationship between capital and labor based on the holes that were exposed by the pandemic.

[Martin DeCaro]

I completely agree. Let's take one issue, child poverty. During the pandemic, children suffered enormously. Right. Even though they were less likely to have mortality from the pandemic. So children who weren't in school didn't have proper nutrition. Joe Biden's early legislation cut the child poverty rate in the United States in half. It had not been that low since the 1960s. There are literally tens of millions of kids who ate better and whose lives were made better. And that will be a good thing for us in the long run because of what happened in those early, early years. No one has done more for children than Joe Biden did in those first years as president. That's pretty extraordinary. But I say this, I've said it to my students. Most people don't know. Most people don't know. What he didn't do that Ronald Reagan did, that Lyndon Johnson did, is he didn't say, okay, I have a closely divided Congress, as other presidents have had. Johnson didn't. Reagan certainly did. I'm going to actually go to these members districts and I'm gonna make a case he did it a little bit with infrastructure, going to Kentucky and elsewhere with McConnell. Right. And he did win on that one, where you have Republicans now taking credit for the infrastructure he needed to go around energetically into the places where Joe Manchin and various moderate members of the House were and sell his program to their constituents. Right. What did Reagan do so? Well, he went over the heads of Congress. That is the job of the President. There is the negotiation, the LBJ arm twisting, which Biden was pretty good at, but there's also the going over the head. LBJ does this brilliantly. Right. With the 64 Civil Rights Act. He tells members of Congress, I'm not only gonna push you on this, I'm tell the public this is the legacy of the dead president. Biden didn't do that. And I think that's a real missing piece in this.

[Jeremy Suri]

He didn't have 70 to 75 Democratic senators like FDR did. Although the New Deal still faced hurdles, still had to be compromised. The Southern conservative Democrats who were in charge of all those congressional committees, Senate committees, started their careers in the late 19th, early 20th century, wanted to exclude black people from New Deal programs. So there was some of that there, too.

[Martin DeCaro]

And they did to some extent. He wasn't gonna get everything and he got a lot, but he could have gotten a lot more in this way. Go to the districts with lots of poor children where they have Republican representatives, tell people what you're doing there, and then ask why Mike Johnson is not voting for this.

[Jeremy Suri]

Biden did propose and got through Congress large spending measures. I think the first Covid relief bill was in March of 2021. His agenda also included what we would call industrial policy. Semiconductor chips, manufacturing, bringing that back, reshoring that to the United States. The climate measures in the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act. You know, really no new social policy. He wanted to do Build Back Better. And I'll give you a couple of items from the Build Back Better news release that were never realized because of again, the divisions in Congress. Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and Republicans basically being entirely opposed to these things. Offers universal and free preschool for all three and four year olds. What he called the largest expansion of universal and free education since states and communities across the country established public high school 100 years ago. Point number two, makes the largest investment in childcare in the nation's history, saving most American families more than half of their spending on childcare. 39 million households would get an extension of the child tax credit that also foundered. I think a mansion or somebody was against that. What I'm getting at here is that his big social policy, he never got anywhere.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yes and no. I mean, he would argue that if he had a second term, there was much more to do. And if you look at many presidents, a full agenda does require two terms. That's why we tend to see two term presidents not just as more politically successful, but as more institutionally and policy successful. I mean, there are many key parts of the New Deal that require the.

[Jeremy Suri]

Second term or even a third.

[Martin DeCaro]

Right. Or a fourth, maybe.

[Jeremy Suri]

Right. The GI Bill and all that after the war help so many people.

[Martin DeCaro]

I was just gonna say, right. There's no GI Bill without FDRs. I guess that's in his third term, the very end of his third term, 1944. We have to give Biden also the point that he didn't have as much time. But I also think that expanding programs is often how new programs are created. And so much of what he did to try to make health care more accessible to people and more Americans are on health care now than have health care now than have ever had had it before. Health insurance. I think that is significant. Again, it's. It's that he doesn't get credit for it because he wasn't able to tell the story to people and give it a name. There's Obamacare. Why isn't there Biden care? Why aren't we talking about Biden care?

[Jeremy Suri]

We tried Bidenomics, but that didn't land. I mean, bidenomics, when groceries and everything are going through the roof, even though he didn't cause inflation any more than Jimmy Carter caused inflation. I don't want to totally exonerate him, but you know what I. I mean.

[Martin DeCaro]

Bidenomics, I think was a stupid label to start with and I think it was actually used often to criticize him. Right, Because a label that works is a label that actually tells you what you got. Biodynomics doesn't tell you. Right. The New Deal. I got a new Deal. That's good, right? The Great Society. I have a great Society. That's good. What is biodynomics? I mean that just. That sounds like one of my colleagues classes on campus.

[Jeremy Suri]

You know, as David M. Kennedy has taught us, the key word in the New Deal is security. That was FDR's vision. Even in good times, many Americans were within an inch of being destitute. He wanted to impart a heavy degree of security predictability in economic life, the vicissitudes of life in a capitalist society. So Social Security, minimum wages, et cetera. I don't need to go over the entire New Deal agenda that endured. We don't judge FDR based on experiments that never made it out of the 1930s. You know, FDR's vision was to have security for ordinary people in American capitalism. Predictability, say with the stock markets.

[Martin DeCaro]

Right.

[Jeremy Suri]

The sec. I think Biden did envision something like that for his presidency. You know, when the pandemic struck. And now you have no childcare or you don't have paid family leave, or you don't have sick leave. Right. But his successes were only were incomplete.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, I think you just explained something that he still doesn't understand. Right. He talks about opportunity in a way Lincoln did. And I think our country, as Biden says, is built around the notion of every everyone having opportunity, that everyone can get rich, everyone can make their life better. That's the American dream. But what FDR understood is that in a moment of disruption, in a moment of profound insecurity, people look to government for security. And that's where we are coming out of the pandemic. In an economy where most people have jobs but they're not sure their job will be there for many years, where people are being paid, but they're having trouble keeping up with their grocery bills and their mortgages. Right. People feel insecure. They're not suffering. We are not in 19, 30, 31, but we are in a moment where people feel very, very, even high income people feel very uncertain about the future. Biden did not do enough to do just what you said to make people feel more secure. Some of that's about the content of the programs, but some of that is also how you tell the story of the programs. And I'm sorry to say some of that is also, also who you are as a person. FDR created an image of himself as this strong, hulking father figure even though he couldn't walk. Biden became more and more of a frail, grandfatherly figure in our eyes. It's hard for people to feel secure when they see that person leading the country, I'm sorry to say.

[Jeremy Suri]

Yeah, especially the last two years. First two years. Last two years are different. So let's shift to foreign policy. I probably should have done this earlier in the interview because Biden sees himself as a foreign policy president.

[Martin DeCaro]

Can I say something about that? Almost every president comes into office as Biden did, as FDR did, as Woodrow Wilson did Lyndon Johnson. Every president comes into office thinking they're going to be defined by their domestic agenda. And in the end they say my foreign policy agenda mattered most. Why? Because just as we were discussing things. Right. It's very hard to manage Congress. It's a little easier to manage a foreign policy because you don't have to go through Congress as much.

[Jeremy Suri]

That's right. The imperial presidency. You know, I want to talk about the pivot to confronting China and his support for NATO, Ukraine, but I find it impossible to begin this part of the discussion without mentioning, without emphasizing Gaza. Biden talks a lot about human rights, the so called rules based liberal international order. I don't get too opinionated on this show, Jeremy, but I will. Right now, Biden is complicit. He was an active participant in supplying Israel weapons over the past 400 days. Complicit in the destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza, egregious war crimes. And I believe this will be a stain on his legacy and on our country's history.

[Martin DeCaro]

Those are strong words and I think there's a lot to them. He also defended Israel and many people see that as a valuable thing. He appears to be leaving office with some kind of ceasefire in place, place and some sort of agreement on reconstruction of Gaza. But, but I agree with you. I think the destruction in Gaza and the violence in the region will follow him as part of his legacy, but it is complex. He also was president when Assad finally fell. Neither Trump nor Obama could get rid of Assad, and Biden will say it happened on his watch. So. So this is a complicated story, but your, your general point is right, to talk about a rules based order and a world built around human rights and rule of law. That is a caricature of the world we're in now. And the more Biden would say that, the less persuasive I think it was, not just to his opponents, but to his supporters as well.

[Jeremy Suri]

For a man supposedly filled with empathy, he had a blind spot. He is a Zionist, but he had a blind spot. You know, just because you're a Zionist doesn't mean you have to do what he did. He had a blind spot for the Palestinians. And as I've learned from doing so many shows over the past year about this goes back all the way to the early 1980s. Some of the remarks he made about Israel's siege of Beirut during the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon. At a time when Ronald Reagan was using U.S. leverage to change Menachem Begin's policy, his behavior. President Biden refused to use immense US Leverage over Israel to effect a change in the course of that war. Yes, his initial defense of Israel was inspirational, but it's gone way, way too far. 460 days, I agree.

[Martin DeCaro]

But we also have to point out that he had a very difficult set of international interlocutors with Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership. Almost every president thinks that they can bring order to the Middle east. And more often than not, the Middle east brings disorder to them. Just think of the records of Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden. This in no way diminishes what you're referring to the human costs here. But I think this is a pattern. This is a consistent pattern. And I don't think it'll be any better with Trump.

[Jeremy Suri]

His defense of Ukraine, also inspirational at first, but where was the innovative vision, innovative foreign policy or diplomacy to try to bring that conflict to an end? Well, because let me just add one more point. I'm not sure about this, but I still think he or his administration believes that Ukraine needs to or can expel all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory. That's not going to help happen.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, we don't know what's going to happen. That certainly seems unlikely to happen. I wouldn't bet on that happening. I agree with you. We shouldn't be Pollyannish about this. But on the other hand, this is a case, Ukraine, where our verdict on Biden will be determined by what happens in the next three to four years. He managed to not only provide Ukraine the resources to push back on a true Russian invasion attempt, an overwhelming Russian invasion attempt, he brought the Western alert alliance together on this. NATO is so much stronger now, not just than it was under Trump, but than it was under Bush or Obama. And NATO, as it now includes Finland and Sweden, which are major, major strategic assets. And Ukraine will be able to fight a lot longer. We don't know where this is going to go. We don't know where it's going to end. And a peace agreement is very hard. I've not heard any possible template for an acceptable peace agreement for Ukraine right now that would not allow Putin to basically rest his forces for a year and attack again. You know, unless you're going to put American forces and some other forces on the ground to police this new border. If you have Russian forces in occupation of Ukrainian territory, that is an insecure, unacceptable solution for Ukraine. So Biden didn't solve this problem, but I think I do give him an A for bringing the alliance together and providing Ukraine with the resources and now resources Ukraine will be able to use for at least, at least more months and maybe more years. Even if Trump does not provide support.

[Jeremy Suri]

There needs to be a negotiated settlement. We shouldn't overstate how well Russia is doing either. The war has been a disastrous endeavor for Putin.

[Martin DeCaro]

500,000 casualties. Russia has taken as many casualties as the US took during the civil war, more than we took during World War II.

[Jeremy Suri]

Biden says he and Trump are polar opposites, but he has adopted Trump's China policy. The tariffs basically even higher in some cases, not just maintain. And also the so called pivot or the confrontation with China was Biden's China policy, which was Trump's policy.

[Martin DeCaro]

Right.

[Jeremy Suri]

As I mentioned, there's some continuities there. Was it effective?

[Martin DeCaro]

You know, we have to see where things go in the next few years. But I think there are some successes that Biden can very legitimately point to. First, he was able to bring South Korea and Japan together and forge more of a cooperative relationship. This has always been the problem. Right. People talk of the US alliance system, system in Asia as hub and spokes. Right. Where the US Is at the center bringing these different groups together. Now he created more horizontal cooperation. The deal with Australia to build submarines there and strengthen Australia's ability to resist Chinese activities and more cooperation there, especially including India as Well, these are all big steps. They're not sexy, they're not big peace agreements, but these actually strengthen our position. He was able to maintain a hard line with China, but still maintain effective dialogue in many cases. What I think has undermined this relationship, his failure has been his inability to persuade the Chinese not to be supportive of Russia or Iran or other American adversaries elsewhere. That has been his biggest failure, not finding the leverage to limit, limit Chinese wrongdoing in these other areas.

[Jeremy Suri]

Complicating matters, supply chains. I look at Apple, other companies have sophisticated supply chains in China. This isn't just about great power competition. This is about multinational corporations, supply chains, et cetera. You know, as Adam Tooze points out in this excellent essay that I shared with you and I'll share with my listeners, you know, China still does a lot more when it comes to subsidizing green technology, etc. Etc. The competition with China over semiconductors, the chips act and all, I mean, this is catch up time really.

[Martin DeCaro]

But that's a good argument for the CHiPs act, which by the way had bipartisan support. One of my Republican senators in Texas, John Cornyn, was strongly supportive of the CHIPS act and Texas has benefited handsomely from investments. This is a foreign policy win. To be able to at least give us more supply chain options. I don't think we've been able to, to substitute or replace the supply chain dependence upon China. I don't think we will. It's the nature of our economy and there will always be a lot of chips coming from Taiwan, which is a very vulnerable strategic position.

[Jeremy Suri]

Taiwan Semiconductor is one of the most important companies in the world based there.

[Martin DeCaro]

Absolutely. But we are now doing more of this elsewhere. We have diversified our supply chains and that is the work of Joe Biden and a Republican Congress that we're doing that.

[Jeremy Suri]

You know, we could talk about Ukraine, Israel, China, individual parts of the globe, but you know, writ large he talked about an inflection point in history.

[Joe Biden]

We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history. And I'm here today to share with you how the United States intends to work with partners and allies to answer these questions and the commitment of my new administration to help lead the world toward a more peaceful, prosperous future for all people.

[Jeremy Suri]

Democracy is under assault or is on the retreat. Autocracy, an alternative model to the so called end of history, Democratic capitalism. As I always mention, Fukuyama, he didn't mean the terminus, the end of time, he meant means to an end. The idea that democratic capitalism, free markets Free trade, were on the march and were triumphant. Biden's message was, we're seeing a backsliding across the globe, and it's not something that we can just allow to have happen. We have to confront and compete with autocracies, a bloc of autocracies, as some people put it, that has emerged across the globe. Russia, China. How would you assess how much success he had? If any one president can roll something like that back in advancing democracy rather than autocracy across the globe?

[Martin DeCaro]

That is what he was talking about. Remember the democracy summit he had? You could argue we had a lot of elections. Most of them in 60 countries were fair. Not all, but most of them were fair and most of them were violent, free. So maybe that's a victory. But I do think on this one, he failed. He leaves office with democracy looking and feeling as imperiled, if not more imperiled, around the world. His farewell address, which I've written about, in some ways, people are praising him for talking about oligarchy and misuse of power and robber barons. Elon Musk is the subtext and Mark Zuckerberg of so much of that farewell address address. But it's kind of like Eisenhower talked about the military industrial complex after he's tripled the size of the American nuclear arsenal. It's actually an admission of defeat. The rise of oligarchy was what he was worried about when he came into office. And it's gotten worse in many ways at home and abroad. The world is less confident in democracies. And let's be clear, Martin. One of the great successes of US foreign policy in the last 70 years has been to make. Make the world believe that democracy is a better form of government. This was not a natural feeling for people in Japan at the end of.

[Jeremy Suri]

World War II for most of human history.

[Martin DeCaro]

Correct. Sometimes what we said was not even in line with our own behavior and our own actions. Right. We're actually calling for civil rights in other societies when we're not having them in our own. But nonetheless, we created. This is what Fukuyama was talking about. We created a trend toward democracy that benefited us as well as we hope other societies. And Biden has not managed to do that. It's really hard. You and I in 10 podcasts wouldn't come up with a silver bullet way to do this, but he laid that out as part of his agenda, and that's part of his agenda he did not fulfill. I remember one meeting I was in at the beginning of the administration with the Secretary of State. He was Meeting with a bunch of us as historians and we were talking about this, you know, what is democracy for the working class? Foreign policy, excuse me, for the working class going to look like. What is foreign policy for the spread of democracy going to look like? And that did not come to fruition. It's really hard. But we need to keep thinking on that because I think that's the right question. We just need better answers.

[Jeremy Suri]

And the United States number one partner or client in the Middle east, which receives billions in military aid every year, Israel can hardly be called a liberal democracy anymore with a government made up of religious and nationalist fanatics. The de facto annexation of the west bank is underway. We talked about the destruction of Gaza. I don't think I'm wrong to harp on these inconsistencies.

[Martin DeCaro]

Oh, absolutely. And every president has inconsistencies. But the inconsistencies are acceptable when you see trends going the other way in other areas. Right. So Reagan could have and should be criticized for his anti democratic, anti human rights behavior in Latin America, but he can point to the pro democracy things he was able to help in Eastern Junior Biden would need to find some way to balance that equation and he didn't.

[Joe Biden]

After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands. Nation where the strengths of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it's your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it too.

[Jeremy Suri]

On the next episode of History as it happens. Jimmy Carter, the Shah of Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini. No, they're not going to be my guests. They're all dead. We're going to extract some valuable lessons over a very important chapter in US Foreign policy history that are often overlooked in retrospectives of Jimmy Carter's presidency, not the hostage crisis, the two years before it. That's next as we report history as it happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Sign [e-mail].