March 23, 2023 • 25 mins
President Joe Biden is halfway through his first term and will likely run for re-election. How will historians view his presidency so far? Southern Methodist University Professor Jeffrey Engel discusses Biden’s accomplishments and missteps with host Steven Schragis.
One Day University is a co-production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. It is a Curiosity Podcast. You can sign up at the website OneDayU.com to become a member and access over 700 full length video lectures. You can also download their app. Once you’re a member, you can watch Professor Jeffrey Engel’s lectures on presidential history .
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
He drives a convertible corvette, likes wearing idiot or sunglasses.
He likes going biking. His favorite treat in the world
is ice cream. I mean, how damning can a man
be if his favorite treat is ice cream. Welcome to
One Day University Talks with the world's most engaging and
(00:23):
inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses. This podcast is
your chance to discover some of our top rated lectures
on your own schedule. I'm Stephen Shragas. In the two
years since his inauguration, President Joe Biden has had a
lot on his plate. The COVID nineteen pandemic, threats of
(00:44):
an economic recession, the war in Ukraine, the Afghanistan withdrawal,
tensions with China, a divided and antagonistic Congress, not to
mention controversies surrounding classified documents, and investigations targeting his son.
It's hard in the moment to assess how well he's
handling it all beyond just looking at his poll members.
(01:06):
So we called in an expert. Professor Jeffrey Angel has
given One Day University Talks on several presidents, from FDR
to George HW. Bush. He's the founding director of the
Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and has
written several books on American foreign policy. President Biden is
(01:27):
the oldest sitting American president in history, and as Jeffrey explains,
that means Biden understands how Washington has changed over the
last half century. President Biden has one of the longest
pre presidential records of any man who have ever upheld
(01:50):
the obal office. There's two aspects of that, of course. First,
he got started very young, and now he's also very old.
And he was actually elected Senator at the age of
twenty nine, before he was even eligible to sit in
the Senate. Now it happens to be that the election
was at when he's twenty nine, he turned thirty, which
is a legal requirement age before the day who was
supposed to be sworn ant. So there's nothing funny going
(02:12):
on here. But he's just a remarkably young man and
he spent all those years in the Senate from that
time up until two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama
chose him to be his vice president as an old hand,
as a Washington expert, as a man who really understood
how Washington worked. Which of course was useful for President Obama,
who had only been in the Senate for a few
(02:33):
years of that time, at least politically, to give the
impression that he had an experienced hand coming with him.
It really gives you a real good sense of how
long President Biden had been there. He had been chair
of the Judicial Committee, he had been on the Foreign
Affairs Committee in the Senate for years. He was known
as somebody who was willing to reach across the aisle, frankly,
in a way that we don't see much in the
(02:54):
Senate anymore. You could make a really good accusation against
Senator or Biden in his last years that he was
part of the problem that Washington had become too chummy,
that senators, you know, essentially lived too long and worked
too long together and had lost the fire in their
bellies to fight out being issues. Frankly, I think today
we'd like a little bit less fire in our Senate.
(03:16):
But he was known during his time as being a
man who was particularly interested in trying to be collegial
now that oftentimes backfired. He most famously, was, of course,
chair of the Judicial Committee when Anita Hill and Clarence
Thomas had their famous controversy over his actions when Clarence
(03:39):
Thomas was being reviewed for nomination for the Supreme Court,
and Biden historically did not come off looking good at
that point, because you know, he chaired a committee which
was all men that they were asking inappropriate questions of
a woman. But all of which is to say that
gives a hauswle a sense that Biden was very interested
throughout his career and at that moment in particular of
trying to be even handed. Let me ask you, you're
(04:02):
sort of an expert on leadership as well. I've heard
you speak on that a few different times. Can you
say something about Biden's leadership style, and while you're at it,
his overall personality. You know, his overall personality is kind
of uncle Joe or Grandpa Joe. And effectually it has
always been that way, even when he was a younger man.
You know, he speaks as an normal American middle class
(04:25):
or blue collar worker would in a sense, he's never lost,
as he would say, the Squinton where he grew up.
He's never lost Delaware a small state feel where everybody
knows everybody, and he likes to tell anecdotes. Now oftentimes
those anecdotes go awry. They always have his entire career.
One of the fascinating things for me watching Biden now,
of course, when age is a critical element of how
(04:47):
we understand his presidency, is how many people have focused
on the fact that he misspeaks as an old man.
He always misspoke as a young man for two reasons. First,
because you know, some people make gaffs. I like to
challenge all of my friends who like to criticize any
politician for speaking, to have their words transcribed over the
(05:07):
course of twenty four hours and see how well they
stand up. But secondly, also an interesting aspect of President
Biden's personal life, he actually had a severe stutter as
a very young man and worked extremely hard hours spun hours,
spun hours of solo labor to overcome that stutter. So
every now and then when he has a gaff, one
can still see that he is a person who has
(05:29):
to think about forming words in a way perhaps a
someway without a stutter does not, so it shows the
sign of his perseverance. You know, he also likes to
be fun. He drives a convertible corvette, likes wearing aviat
or sunglasses. He likes going biking. His favorite treat in
the world is ice cream. I mean, you know how
damning can a man be if his favorite treat is
(05:49):
ice cream. Let me ask you, Jeff, We're now two
years into his presidency. How would you sum up the
Biden presidency in just two or three sentences? Remarkably significant,
remarkably accomplished, remarkably misunderstood. I think President Biden first and foremost,
(06:10):
his main goal throughout his campaign was to win. Now,
that's what most campaigns are about, but he took it
as a personal challenge, and there's a lot of hubris
in this as a personal challenge to defeat Donald Trump,
who he saw as an existential threat to the nation.
I mean, most people run for president and if their
(06:30):
opponent wins, they say, well, galli, I guess we're going
to be out of power for four years. Very rarely
doesn't man run for president and say if I lose,
we're going to lose democracy. That was what President Biden
said on the campaign trail. So just his winning alone,
in a sense, could give him the sense of accomplishment
that I saved the nation, or at least postponed the
(06:50):
death of democracy for four years. That's his view of things,
to be sure, But I think we also need to
remember that President Biden has accomplished a remarkable out I
would put his legislative accomplishments up against almost anyone's since
Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson for the first two years
of his presidency. We're not going to see anything like
that for the second two years, of course, because now
(07:11):
the House of Representatives is controlled by the opposing party.
But if you think about the accomplishments in terms of
the Build Back Better Plan, infrastructure, reworking healthcare, yet again,
they are remarkable. But one critical thing is that Minden's misunderstood,
and I think he's misunderstood for two particular reasons. First,
because we have a particularly bifurcated and siloed media environment
(07:35):
at this point in American history, where people essentially only
listen to the news that they signed up to here,
and so people only know the information that they get.
And this story that the administration told, and this is
the most important point, the story that the administration told
threats first two years was actually one of inability to
accomplish things. Because they were trying to accomplish things that
(07:57):
were really big legislatively, and that we're in constant negotiation
and getting watered down, so that you know, President Biden
wanted an infrastructure bill that was several trillion dollars larger
than what he actually got. So the narrative for the
American people was that for months and months and months,
you've been trying to pass something and now you've got
(08:18):
something really small. Well, the truth is it's one of
the biggest bills in history. So it's really an interesting
way in which, you know, if we had just put
Americans into a time capsule and not had to have
them watch and listen to the sausage making in the
Senate with Senator Mansion and Senator Cinema and others blocking
legislation despite being Democrats, if we had managed to put
(08:39):
people on a time capsule on the day he was
inaugurated and then fast forward to today and then show
them the record, they would say, my god, that man
must have an approval rating of seventy five percent. But
the truth is half Americans are never going to like
him anyway at this point, and the other half has
been saying, boy, you didn't get as much as you
thought you wanted. Then let me ask this, put aside
(09:00):
his accomplishments, what do you think have been his biggest missteps?
There's no doubt that his biggest misstep was Afghanistan and
the withdrawal from Afghastan. And I want to put a
big asterisk and caveat around that, especially as you mentioned
before as somebody who studies and teaches leadership, one of
the things that is critical for people to understand about
leadership is leaders don't do things. Leaders tell other people
(09:22):
to do things. They said direction was the president's most
powerful weapon. It's actually his telephone, being able to tell
other people what to do and convince other people what
to do. And the mission in the withdrawal from Afghanistan,
which of course began as an American odyssey in two
thousand and one, the longest running more in American history,
which President Biden had wanted to draw down and advised
(09:44):
the drawing down of more than the Obama administration did
when he was vice president. That final withdrawal went badly.
It was chaos. There were American lives that were lost,
There are many Afghan lives that were lost. It did
not look good on television. Now again, President Biden wasn't
in Afghanistan checking people into the airport and checking their bags.
(10:05):
But as the commander in chief, he is responsible for
everything that happened, and that is I think an important
thing to note about Biden as opposed to other leaders
that we've had recently in the White House that when
something went wrong on his watch, and Afghanistan went very wrong,
Biden said, I am the commander in chief. I gave
(10:26):
the orders. It's my responsibility. Blame me, even though he
actually was in some ways let down by the people
who had to initiate and engage his plans half a
world away. Now, let get how want to be careful here.
I'm not criticizing the military for the difficulties of its
draw in Afghanistan because I couldn't do it. It's a
tough job. They did a remarkable job, but it was
(10:49):
not as smooth as they or the President wanted. Biden
delivered his State of the Union address not too long ago,
and it was very contentious. Republicans were yelling at him
from the seats, and he interrupted his own speech to respond,
I means Connress doesn't vote well. I'm glad to see you,
(11:10):
not I tell you I enjoy conversion. Biden campaigned on
being able to work across the aisle with Republicans. Has
that happened? What's going on? It's funny and sad at
the same time. My daughter is fourteen years old and
she writes for her student newspaper. She's a much better
writer than I am, by the way, and she has
(11:31):
is writing an article on the incivility of congress in
particularly at the State of the Union, and she came
to me and said, I've just discovered that there was
a case of a congressman from South Carolina who yelled
Julie at President Obama back in his earlier days, and
that congressman was sanctioned for the inappropriate nature of what
(11:52):
he did. Flash forward, of course to President Biden's most
recent State of the Union address and a congress person
standing up been yelling Ulie. Happened every minute and a half.
So we've certainly seen a degradation of civility. I think
one of the things that Biden did that was very
important in his Stay of the Union, especially going off script,
was to make the point that he's trying for some
(12:18):
former bipartisanship stand up and show them will not cut
our security. We will not cut Medicare benefits blong in
the American people. They earned it. If anyone tries to
cut over security, which apparently no one's gonna do. If
anyone tries, it's trut Medicare, I'll stop them. I'll betoing.
(12:41):
This is spontaneous quip. And I think that that's important
because he even then signaled that he's trying to find
things that people can agree upon, and this is not
easy in the political environment in which he lives. After
the break, why would anyone want to be vice president?
And how big of an ego does it take to
(13:02):
be commander in chief? What about is Vice President Kamala Harris?
Obviously she made history, is the first woman to serve
as vice president and the first woman of color in
(13:24):
that role. How would you analyze her time so far
as VP? Has she made an impact? The first thing
we need to know about analyzing any vice president is
that it is quite literally the worst job in America
or the best job in America. It's not just similar
to being the backup quarterback on a football team and
you get paid a lot of money and hopefully nobody
ever thinks you should play. So Kamala Harris has not
(13:46):
done much, frankly, to demonstrate leadership in a White House
that has a strong leader in President Biden. And this
is particularly interesting because President Biden, of course was vice
president understood the role for eight years to Obama. But
I want you to set up the just think about
the dynamics, if you will, between Biden and Obama and
Biden and Harris, and I think he reveals a lot
(14:07):
of Harris's problems. But Biden was brought in as the
senior hand for Obama, as the experience mentor that he
could that Obama could turn to for guidance, for wisdom, etc.
That is not the traditional vice president's role. That was
the vice president's role for Dick Cheney, that was the
vice president's role for Biden. But more likely role is
(14:28):
usually it's a younger person who has brought in to
kind of invigorate the ticket. That was the case with
Dan Quail, that was the case certainly with Kamala Harris.
And I think in all those cases, the vice president
who is the younger person is frankly seen to be
appropriately subservient to the president. And that's not a great
way to increase your political stature. Remember, and this can't
(14:50):
be overseered enough. President Biden, when he accepted the vice
presidency nomination in two thousand and eight, gave up any
dreams of being president. He believed he was going to say,
spend four hopefully eight years helping an administration, and then
he was going to retire. And in twenty sixteen seventeen
(15:11):
he left office and did retire. It's only the existential
threat that he saw to the nation that was Donald Trump,
that made him get back into the race to run
in twenty twenty. Kamala Harris obviously has political aspirations, and
that puts her in an extraordinarily difficult position. So I
think she would be disappointed if we had put her
(15:32):
in a similar time capsule and had her pop up
and look at her popularity ratings two years after inauguration,
she'd be disappointed with where they were. But I don't
think she should be surprised. Let me push back on
that a little bit, though, Jeff. I've heard people say
Joe Biden wanted to be president from the time he
was three years old and spent a lifetime trying to
(15:54):
get there, and then it looked like he lost out.
But a set of circumstances arose and he could run.
In twenty twenty, there were other people who could have
been elected president and made Donald Trump an ex president.
He didn't have to run, He wasn't the only person,
but he did. Is it possible his political aspirations are
(16:18):
just so strong he couldn't let go of them. You know,
two things can be true at the same time. Let's
remember we're talking about a person becoming president. I have
argued elsewhere, I suspect argued to the end of my
days that all presidents are sociobaths, or at the very
least psychologically unusual in the sense that imagine the ego
(16:38):
it takes to be a leader of a country of
three hundred and fifty odd million people, and you got
to look in the mirror every morning and say, there
is no one else among those three hundred and fifty
million who can do the job I can. That's an
unusual edo who lost stress in the word unusual. And
by the way, I should mention that person also by
running for office, gains the power to destroy all of humanity. Well, again,
(17:00):
not the average thing a person wants. So we should
not be surprised that when President Biden perceived the nation
in danger. He said, I'm the only one that can
save it. At that point, of course, he was former
Vice President Biden. When he saw a problem. We should
not be surprised that man of that ego and that
aspiration would say I am the one to solve the problem.
(17:23):
At the same time, I fully believe and I am
quite confident in the fact that had it not been
for the Trump presidency, Biden would not have run in
twenty twenty. He realized Hillary Clan had the backing of
more Democrats, including President Obama. But he could have pushed
back and said I'm sorry, I'm running anyway. He didn't.
(17:45):
So that tells me if there had to be something
else that occurred for him to want to jump into
the race. Well, I don't know if he's a sociopath,
but if he is, he's the oldest sitting presidential sociopath
in American history. Has that age issue hurt presidency? Oh?
And definitely. How do you think Americans view him? I
think as an old man because here's the thing, he's
(18:05):
an old man. He is going to be the oldest
president in history. And then when he's going to run
as the oldest candidate for reelection in American history, and
agism maybe the last acceptable form of stereotyping and large
scale criticism that Americans are allowed. But they do seem
to take advantage of that when talking about President Biden.
(18:26):
I think there is no question in my mind that
if President Biden were fifty three and had accomplished the
same there would be no talk anywhere within the Democratic
Party of challenging him or perhaps that he should step down.
Why would He's got an incredible record. Now then, I
know this is speculative, but let's say he does run
(18:46):
and he does win. Let's say he is reelected. What
would a second term for Joe Biden looked like? Disappointing
only in the sense that almost every president second term
is disappointing. You know, even Ronald Reagan, who had great
accomplished in trying to tamp down the tensions of the
Cold War and some argue move US towards a initial
steps towards a post Cold War world, was sucked down
(19:09):
and almost impeached because of Iran Contra. There's a reason
that presidents in their second term modern presidence particular increasingly
focus on foreign affairs. It's because they have come to
the realization that domestic politics are really hard and they've
likely burned almost all their political capital even by the
time they're reelected, especially since most are never going to
(19:29):
run again. So consequently, whatever President Biden wants for his
second term is going to be harder to achieve, more
likely than it was in his first term. So I
would tamp down expectations, which is not to say that
one should not vote or vote for Biden because he
is going to be less than he promises. Every president
(19:51):
is less than they promise, but he is not going to,
i would imagine, achieve more than he aspires to. Will
there ever be a presidential leader again on the scale
of Washington or Lincoln or Fdr. I'm talking about someone
who belongs on Mount Rushmore. You and I should pray
every night that it does not. And I'll tell you why,
(20:12):
because whenever presidential historians or people on bar stools start
arguing about who is who were the greatest presidents, those
three that you mentioned are always at the top. And
you can have a fair argument over who's one, who's two,
who's three, but nobody ever disputes that those are the three. Well,
what do those three have in common. The thing those
three have in common is that those are the only
(20:32):
three times their presidencies in American history, the only three
I would argue where the existential crisis face to nation,
as to say, where the very existence of the United States,
whether it was going to continue as a country, was
in doubt. Obviously at the beginning, George Washington had that
both during revolution and then of course during his presidency.
Can we get this new thing up in Roland? During
(20:54):
the Civil War certainly a moment of existential crisis. If
Lincoln loses the Civil War, well then we don't have
the United States, certainly as we know it. And then
FDR faced the third greatest crisis in American history, not
where we're two, by the way, which was the Great Depression.
The Great Depression was so bad when he assumed office
that he was not uncommon for people to question the
very validity of the concept of democracy. And I could
(21:16):
speak for hours and hours and hours on that which
you don't want me to do, all of which is
to say, to be a truly great president requires a
great crisis. And I would rather have mediocre presidents and
small crises going forward. The rest of my life. All right,
I have one more question for you, Jeff. Another professor
is a friend of yours, Jeremy Surrey. He's asserted a
(21:39):
few times that the presidency has grown into a job
that is just too big for any one person. Do
you agree with that? I don't, actually, but I agree
with everything that Jeremy says up until his solution, which
is to say, yeah, the presidence, he's grown too big.
You know what, the country's grown too big. You know what,
My life has grown too big. Your life is grown
(22:00):
to big. Every generation you can find people saying, boy,
the world is moving faster than I remember, and you
know what, this time it's actually going that way, and
it's going to get worse in the future. I can't
keep it with my inbox. Neither can most people I know,
so the President Nited States certainly can't. But that doesn't
mean the solution is to diminish the presidency. That doesn't
mean that the solution is to have co presidence or
(22:21):
a triumvirate. I will tell you one of the problems
that has developed over the course of the twentieth century,
which we are living with today is the balance and
struggle of power that was established by the Constitution's authors.
It's not a balance of power. Member, It's always supposed
to be a struggle of power. That each branch of
(22:41):
the government is coequal and should be trying to get
more power, and by doing so is supposed to check
each other. That's out of whack, and that has been
out of whack for most of the twentieth century. The
presidency has become by far the dominant figure in American government.
One solution to the problem that Jeremy rightly identifies, or
the presidency being too big, would be for Congress to
(23:02):
take back more of its role as a leader in
the country. Now there's problems with that. You know, there's
a recent Supreme Court case that we've got haven't seen
fully how it's going to play out. That happened in
the last term where the Supreme Court agreed that there
has been too many watering this down dramatically, but too
many times Congress has basically passed the law to say, hey,
(23:22):
executive branch, fix this problem. And then the executive branch
obviously has a lot of authority to fix the problem.
And then when the executive branch changes parties the problem
solutions get completely different. And Congress used to write more
specific language about what it actually wanted, not just solved
the problem, but here's how to do it. Well, got
to be careful what you wish for, because we're going
to get now a case where the executive branch has
(23:44):
been diminished by the Supreme Court and Congress is in
theory supposed to write more accurate legislation. Again, that's not
something I'm betting my kid's future on. So the presidency
has grown too large. Granted I agree with jeremy solutions.
Congress could act more mature. Am I waiting for that? No? Well,
I think it's appropriate to end with a problem with
no solution. So thank you, Jeff. I really appreciate it,
(24:08):
and it's really great to talk to you again. I
so enjoy seeing you and talk to you. Stephen. Thank
you very much for asking me. Thanks for joining us
here at One Day University. Sign up at our website
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(24:29):
there you can watch SMU Professor Jeff Angles lectures on
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(25:17):
Humans
He drives a convertible corvette, likes wearing idiot or sunglasses.
He likes going biking. His favorite treat in the world
is ice cream. I mean, how damning can a man
be if his favorite treat is ice cream. Welcome to
One Day University Talks with the world's most engaging and
(00:23):
inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses. This podcast is
your chance to discover some of our top rated lectures
on your own schedule. I'm Stephen Shragas. In the two
years since his inauguration, President Joe Biden has had a
lot on his plate. The COVID nineteen pandemic, threats of
(00:44):
an economic recession, the war in Ukraine, the Afghanistan withdrawal,
tensions with China, a divided and antagonistic Congress, not to
mention controversies surrounding classified documents, and investigations targeting his son.
It's hard in the moment to assess how well he's
handling it all beyond just looking at his poll members.
(01:06):
So we called in an expert. Professor Jeffrey Angel has
given One Day University Talks on several presidents, from FDR
to George HW. Bush. He's the founding director of the
Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and has
written several books on American foreign policy. President Biden is
(01:27):
the oldest sitting American president in history, and as Jeffrey explains,
that means Biden understands how Washington has changed over the
last half century. President Biden has one of the longest
pre presidential records of any man who have ever upheld
(01:50):
the obal office. There's two aspects of that, of course. First,
he got started very young, and now he's also very old.
And he was actually elected Senator at the age of
twenty nine, before he was even eligible to sit in
the Senate. Now it happens to be that the election
was at when he's twenty nine, he turned thirty, which
is a legal requirement age before the day who was
supposed to be sworn ant. So there's nothing funny going
(02:12):
on here. But he's just a remarkably young man and
he spent all those years in the Senate from that
time up until two thousand and eight, when Barack Obama
chose him to be his vice president as an old hand,
as a Washington expert, as a man who really understood
how Washington worked. Which of course was useful for President Obama,
who had only been in the Senate for a few
(02:33):
years of that time, at least politically, to give the
impression that he had an experienced hand coming with him.
It really gives you a real good sense of how
long President Biden had been there. He had been chair
of the Judicial Committee, he had been on the Foreign
Affairs Committee in the Senate for years. He was known
as somebody who was willing to reach across the aisle, frankly,
in a way that we don't see much in the
(02:54):
Senate anymore. You could make a really good accusation against
Senator or Biden in his last years that he was
part of the problem that Washington had become too chummy,
that senators, you know, essentially lived too long and worked
too long together and had lost the fire in their
bellies to fight out being issues. Frankly, I think today
we'd like a little bit less fire in our Senate.
(03:16):
But he was known during his time as being a
man who was particularly interested in trying to be collegial
now that oftentimes backfired. He most famously, was, of course,
chair of the Judicial Committee when Anita Hill and Clarence
Thomas had their famous controversy over his actions when Clarence
(03:39):
Thomas was being reviewed for nomination for the Supreme Court,
and Biden historically did not come off looking good at
that point, because you know, he chaired a committee which
was all men that they were asking inappropriate questions of
a woman. But all of which is to say that
gives a hauswle a sense that Biden was very interested
throughout his career and at that moment in particular of
trying to be even handed. Let me ask you, you're
(04:02):
sort of an expert on leadership as well. I've heard
you speak on that a few different times. Can you
say something about Biden's leadership style, and while you're at it,
his overall personality. You know, his overall personality is kind
of uncle Joe or Grandpa Joe. And effectually it has
always been that way, even when he was a younger man.
You know, he speaks as an normal American middle class
(04:25):
or blue collar worker would in a sense, he's never lost,
as he would say, the Squinton where he grew up.
He's never lost Delaware a small state feel where everybody
knows everybody, and he likes to tell anecdotes. Now oftentimes
those anecdotes go awry. They always have his entire career.
One of the fascinating things for me watching Biden now,
of course, when age is a critical element of how
(04:47):
we understand his presidency, is how many people have focused
on the fact that he misspeaks as an old man.
He always misspoke as a young man for two reasons. First,
because you know, some people make gaffs. I like to
challenge all of my friends who like to criticize any
politician for speaking, to have their words transcribed over the
(05:07):
course of twenty four hours and see how well they
stand up. But secondly, also an interesting aspect of President
Biden's personal life, he actually had a severe stutter as
a very young man and worked extremely hard hours spun hours,
spun hours of solo labor to overcome that stutter. So
every now and then when he has a gaff, one
can still see that he is a person who has
(05:29):
to think about forming words in a way perhaps a
someway without a stutter does not, so it shows the
sign of his perseverance. You know, he also likes to
be fun. He drives a convertible corvette, likes wearing aviat
or sunglasses. He likes going biking. His favorite treat in
the world is ice cream. I mean, you know how
damning can a man be if his favorite treat is
(05:49):
ice cream. Let me ask you, Jeff, We're now two
years into his presidency. How would you sum up the
Biden presidency in just two or three sentences? Remarkably significant,
remarkably accomplished, remarkably misunderstood. I think President Biden first and foremost,
(06:10):
his main goal throughout his campaign was to win. Now,
that's what most campaigns are about, but he took it
as a personal challenge, and there's a lot of hubris
in this as a personal challenge to defeat Donald Trump,
who he saw as an existential threat to the nation.
I mean, most people run for president and if their
(06:30):
opponent wins, they say, well, galli, I guess we're going
to be out of power for four years. Very rarely
doesn't man run for president and say if I lose,
we're going to lose democracy. That was what President Biden
said on the campaign trail. So just his winning alone,
in a sense, could give him the sense of accomplishment
that I saved the nation, or at least postponed the
(06:50):
death of democracy for four years. That's his view of things,
to be sure, But I think we also need to
remember that President Biden has accomplished a remarkable out I
would put his legislative accomplishments up against almost anyone's since
Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson for the first two years
of his presidency. We're not going to see anything like
that for the second two years, of course, because now
(07:11):
the House of Representatives is controlled by the opposing party.
But if you think about the accomplishments in terms of
the Build Back Better Plan, infrastructure, reworking healthcare, yet again,
they are remarkable. But one critical thing is that Minden's misunderstood,
and I think he's misunderstood for two particular reasons. First,
because we have a particularly bifurcated and siloed media environment
(07:35):
at this point in American history, where people essentially only
listen to the news that they signed up to here,
and so people only know the information that they get.
And this story that the administration told, and this is
the most important point, the story that the administration told
threats first two years was actually one of inability to
accomplish things. Because they were trying to accomplish things that
(07:57):
were really big legislatively, and that we're in constant negotiation
and getting watered down, so that you know, President Biden
wanted an infrastructure bill that was several trillion dollars larger
than what he actually got. So the narrative for the
American people was that for months and months and months,
you've been trying to pass something and now you've got
(08:18):
something really small. Well, the truth is it's one of
the biggest bills in history. So it's really an interesting
way in which, you know, if we had just put
Americans into a time capsule and not had to have
them watch and listen to the sausage making in the
Senate with Senator Mansion and Senator Cinema and others blocking
legislation despite being Democrats, if we had managed to put
(08:39):
people on a time capsule on the day he was
inaugurated and then fast forward to today and then show
them the record, they would say, my god, that man
must have an approval rating of seventy five percent. But
the truth is half Americans are never going to like
him anyway at this point, and the other half has
been saying, boy, you didn't get as much as you
thought you wanted. Then let me ask this, put aside
(09:00):
his accomplishments, what do you think have been his biggest missteps?
There's no doubt that his biggest misstep was Afghanistan and
the withdrawal from Afghastan. And I want to put a
big asterisk and caveat around that, especially as you mentioned
before as somebody who studies and teaches leadership, one of
the things that is critical for people to understand about
leadership is leaders don't do things. Leaders tell other people
(09:22):
to do things. They said direction was the president's most
powerful weapon. It's actually his telephone, being able to tell
other people what to do and convince other people what
to do. And the mission in the withdrawal from Afghanistan,
which of course began as an American odyssey in two
thousand and one, the longest running more in American history,
which President Biden had wanted to draw down and advised
(09:44):
the drawing down of more than the Obama administration did
when he was vice president. That final withdrawal went badly.
It was chaos. There were American lives that were lost,
There are many Afghan lives that were lost. It did
not look good on television. Now again, President Biden wasn't
in Afghanistan checking people into the airport and checking their bags.
(10:05):
But as the commander in chief, he is responsible for
everything that happened, and that is I think an important
thing to note about Biden as opposed to other leaders
that we've had recently in the White House that when
something went wrong on his watch, and Afghanistan went very wrong,
Biden said, I am the commander in chief. I gave
(10:26):
the orders. It's my responsibility. Blame me, even though he
actually was in some ways let down by the people
who had to initiate and engage his plans half a
world away. Now, let get how want to be careful here.
I'm not criticizing the military for the difficulties of its
draw in Afghanistan because I couldn't do it. It's a
tough job. They did a remarkable job, but it was
(10:49):
not as smooth as they or the President wanted. Biden
delivered his State of the Union address not too long ago,
and it was very contentious. Republicans were yelling at him
from the seats, and he interrupted his own speech to respond,
I means Connress doesn't vote well. I'm glad to see you,
(11:10):
not I tell you I enjoy conversion. Biden campaigned on
being able to work across the aisle with Republicans. Has
that happened? What's going on? It's funny and sad at
the same time. My daughter is fourteen years old and
she writes for her student newspaper. She's a much better
writer than I am, by the way, and she has
(11:31):
is writing an article on the incivility of congress in
particularly at the State of the Union, and she came
to me and said, I've just discovered that there was
a case of a congressman from South Carolina who yelled
Julie at President Obama back in his earlier days, and
that congressman was sanctioned for the inappropriate nature of what
(11:52):
he did. Flash forward, of course to President Biden's most
recent State of the Union address and a congress person
standing up been yelling Ulie. Happened every minute and a half.
So we've certainly seen a degradation of civility. I think
one of the things that Biden did that was very
important in his Stay of the Union, especially going off script,
was to make the point that he's trying for some
(12:18):
former bipartisanship stand up and show them will not cut
our security. We will not cut Medicare benefits blong in
the American people. They earned it. If anyone tries to
cut over security, which apparently no one's gonna do. If
anyone tries, it's trut Medicare, I'll stop them. I'll betoing.
(12:41):
This is spontaneous quip. And I think that that's important
because he even then signaled that he's trying to find
things that people can agree upon, and this is not
easy in the political environment in which he lives. After
the break, why would anyone want to be vice president?
And how big of an ego does it take to
(13:02):
be commander in chief? What about is Vice President Kamala Harris?
Obviously she made history, is the first woman to serve
as vice president and the first woman of color in
(13:24):
that role. How would you analyze her time so far
as VP? Has she made an impact? The first thing
we need to know about analyzing any vice president is
that it is quite literally the worst job in America
or the best job in America. It's not just similar
to being the backup quarterback on a football team and
you get paid a lot of money and hopefully nobody
ever thinks you should play. So Kamala Harris has not
(13:46):
done much, frankly, to demonstrate leadership in a White House
that has a strong leader in President Biden. And this
is particularly interesting because President Biden, of course was vice
president understood the role for eight years to Obama. But
I want you to set up the just think about
the dynamics, if you will, between Biden and Obama and
Biden and Harris, and I think he reveals a lot
(14:07):
of Harris's problems. But Biden was brought in as the
senior hand for Obama, as the experience mentor that he
could that Obama could turn to for guidance, for wisdom, etc.
That is not the traditional vice president's role. That was
the vice president's role for Dick Cheney, that was the
vice president's role for Biden. But more likely role is
(14:28):
usually it's a younger person who has brought in to
kind of invigorate the ticket. That was the case with
Dan Quail, that was the case certainly with Kamala Harris.
And I think in all those cases, the vice president
who is the younger person is frankly seen to be
appropriately subservient to the president. And that's not a great
way to increase your political stature. Remember, and this can't
(14:50):
be overseered enough. President Biden, when he accepted the vice
presidency nomination in two thousand and eight, gave up any
dreams of being president. He believed he was going to say,
spend four hopefully eight years helping an administration, and then
he was going to retire. And in twenty sixteen seventeen
(15:11):
he left office and did retire. It's only the existential
threat that he saw to the nation that was Donald Trump,
that made him get back into the race to run
in twenty twenty. Kamala Harris obviously has political aspirations, and
that puts her in an extraordinarily difficult position. So I
think she would be disappointed if we had put her
(15:32):
in a similar time capsule and had her pop up
and look at her popularity ratings two years after inauguration,
she'd be disappointed with where they were. But I don't
think she should be surprised. Let me push back on
that a little bit, though, Jeff. I've heard people say
Joe Biden wanted to be president from the time he
was three years old and spent a lifetime trying to
(15:54):
get there, and then it looked like he lost out.
But a set of circumstances arose and he could run.
In twenty twenty, there were other people who could have
been elected president and made Donald Trump an ex president.
He didn't have to run, He wasn't the only person,
but he did. Is it possible his political aspirations are
(16:18):
just so strong he couldn't let go of them. You know,
two things can be true at the same time. Let's
remember we're talking about a person becoming president. I have
argued elsewhere, I suspect argued to the end of my
days that all presidents are sociobaths, or at the very
least psychologically unusual in the sense that imagine the ego
(16:38):
it takes to be a leader of a country of
three hundred and fifty odd million people, and you got
to look in the mirror every morning and say, there
is no one else among those three hundred and fifty
million who can do the job I can. That's an
unusual edo who lost stress in the word unusual. And
by the way, I should mention that person also by
running for office, gains the power to destroy all of humanity. Well, again,
(17:00):
not the average thing a person wants. So we should
not be surprised that when President Biden perceived the nation
in danger. He said, I'm the only one that can
save it. At that point, of course, he was former
Vice President Biden. When he saw a problem. We should
not be surprised that man of that ego and that
aspiration would say I am the one to solve the problem.
(17:23):
At the same time, I fully believe and I am
quite confident in the fact that had it not been
for the Trump presidency, Biden would not have run in
twenty twenty. He realized Hillary Clan had the backing of
more Democrats, including President Obama. But he could have pushed
back and said I'm sorry, I'm running anyway. He didn't.
(17:45):
So that tells me if there had to be something
else that occurred for him to want to jump into
the race. Well, I don't know if he's a sociopath,
but if he is, he's the oldest sitting presidential sociopath
in American history. Has that age issue hurt presidency? Oh?
And definitely. How do you think Americans view him? I
think as an old man because here's the thing, he's
(18:05):
an old man. He is going to be the oldest
president in history. And then when he's going to run
as the oldest candidate for reelection in American history, and
agism maybe the last acceptable form of stereotyping and large
scale criticism that Americans are allowed. But they do seem
to take advantage of that when talking about President Biden.
(18:26):
I think there is no question in my mind that
if President Biden were fifty three and had accomplished the
same there would be no talk anywhere within the Democratic
Party of challenging him or perhaps that he should step down.
Why would He's got an incredible record. Now then, I
know this is speculative, but let's say he does run
(18:46):
and he does win. Let's say he is reelected. What
would a second term for Joe Biden looked like? Disappointing
only in the sense that almost every president second term
is disappointing. You know, even Ronald Reagan, who had great
accomplished in trying to tamp down the tensions of the
Cold War and some argue move US towards a initial
steps towards a post Cold War world, was sucked down
(19:09):
and almost impeached because of Iran Contra. There's a reason
that presidents in their second term modern presidence particular increasingly
focus on foreign affairs. It's because they have come to
the realization that domestic politics are really hard and they've
likely burned almost all their political capital even by the
time they're reelected, especially since most are never going to
(19:29):
run again. So consequently, whatever President Biden wants for his
second term is going to be harder to achieve, more
likely than it was in his first term. So I
would tamp down expectations, which is not to say that
one should not vote or vote for Biden because he
is going to be less than he promises. Every president
(19:51):
is less than they promise, but he is not going to,
i would imagine, achieve more than he aspires to. Will
there ever be a presidential leader again on the scale
of Washington or Lincoln or Fdr. I'm talking about someone
who belongs on Mount Rushmore. You and I should pray
every night that it does not. And I'll tell you why,
(20:12):
because whenever presidential historians or people on bar stools start
arguing about who is who were the greatest presidents, those
three that you mentioned are always at the top. And
you can have a fair argument over who's one, who's two,
who's three, but nobody ever disputes that those are the three. Well,
what do those three have in common. The thing those
three have in common is that those are the only
(20:32):
three times their presidencies in American history, the only three
I would argue where the existential crisis face to nation,
as to say, where the very existence of the United States,
whether it was going to continue as a country, was
in doubt. Obviously at the beginning, George Washington had that
both during revolution and then of course during his presidency.
Can we get this new thing up in Roland? During
(20:54):
the Civil War certainly a moment of existential crisis. If
Lincoln loses the Civil War, well then we don't have
the United States, certainly as we know it. And then
FDR faced the third greatest crisis in American history, not
where we're two, by the way, which was the Great Depression.
The Great Depression was so bad when he assumed office
that he was not uncommon for people to question the
very validity of the concept of democracy. And I could
(21:16):
speak for hours and hours and hours on that which
you don't want me to do, all of which is
to say, to be a truly great president requires a
great crisis. And I would rather have mediocre presidents and
small crises going forward. The rest of my life. All right,
I have one more question for you, Jeff. Another professor
is a friend of yours, Jeremy Surrey. He's asserted a
(21:39):
few times that the presidency has grown into a job
that is just too big for any one person. Do
you agree with that? I don't, actually, but I agree
with everything that Jeremy says up until his solution, which
is to say, yeah, the presidence, he's grown too big.
You know what, the country's grown too big. You know what,
My life has grown too big. Your life is grown
(22:00):
to big. Every generation you can find people saying, boy,
the world is moving faster than I remember, and you
know what, this time it's actually going that way, and
it's going to get worse in the future. I can't
keep it with my inbox. Neither can most people I know,
so the President Nited States certainly can't. But that doesn't
mean the solution is to diminish the presidency. That doesn't
mean that the solution is to have co presidence or
(22:21):
a triumvirate. I will tell you one of the problems
that has developed over the course of the twentieth century,
which we are living with today is the balance and
struggle of power that was established by the Constitution's authors.
It's not a balance of power. Member, It's always supposed
to be a struggle of power. That each branch of
(22:41):
the government is coequal and should be trying to get
more power, and by doing so is supposed to check
each other. That's out of whack, and that has been
out of whack for most of the twentieth century. The
presidency has become by far the dominant figure in American government.
One solution to the problem that Jeremy rightly identifies, or
the presidency being too big, would be for Congress to
(23:02):
take back more of its role as a leader in
the country. Now there's problems with that. You know, there's
a recent Supreme Court case that we've got haven't seen
fully how it's going to play out. That happened in
the last term where the Supreme Court agreed that there
has been too many watering this down dramatically, but too
many times Congress has basically passed the law to say, hey,
(23:22):
executive branch, fix this problem. And then the executive branch
obviously has a lot of authority to fix the problem.
And then when the executive branch changes parties the problem
solutions get completely different. And Congress used to write more
specific language about what it actually wanted, not just solved
the problem, but here's how to do it. Well, got
to be careful what you wish for, because we're going
to get now a case where the executive branch has
(23:44):
been diminished by the Supreme Court and Congress is in
theory supposed to write more accurate legislation. Again, that's not
something I'm betting my kid's future on. So the presidency
has grown too large. Granted I agree with jeremy solutions.
Congress could act more mature. Am I waiting for that? No? Well,
I think it's appropriate to end with a problem with
no solution. So thank you, Jeff. I really appreciate it,
(24:08):
and it's really great to talk to you again. I
so enjoy seeing you and talk to you. Stephen. Thank
you very much for asking me. Thanks for joining us
here at One Day University. Sign up at our website
one day you dot Com to become a member an
access over seven hundred full length video lectures from the
world's finest professors. You can also download our app and
(24:29):
there you can watch SMU Professor Jeff Angles lectures on
other presidents, as well as his talks on the Cold War,
Pearl Harbor, and more. Join us next time when we
talk about athletes that stuck around too long. In his
final season, the greatest baseball player of all time had
a very meager one eighty one. The Bambino, the Sultan
(24:50):
of Swat, the Caliph of Clout. You know he went
out with the whimper. One Day University is a production
of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. If you're enjoying
the show, leave a review in your favorite podcast app.
You can also check out other Curiosity podcasts to learn
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