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      The Long Alliance review: sure guide to Biden and Obama’s imperfect union

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      The Long Alliance review: sure guide to Biden and Obama’s imperfect union Gabriel Debenedetti masters the crosscurrents of the Democratic party as well as relations between two presidentsGabriel Debenedetti is the national correspondent for New York magazine. His first book brings depth and context to the near-two-decade relationship between the 44th and 46th presidents. Under a telling subtitle, The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, Debenedetti captures the two men’s closeness – and distance.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreThe Long Alliance emphasizes that the pair’s time in power together was not a buddy movie. Obama was the star. Biden played a supporting role until he too seized the brass ring, to send Donald Trump into exile.Obama was a first-term senator, just 47 years old, when he vanquished the Clintons, bulldozed John McCain and entered the White House. Biden’s trajectory was markedly different. Late in life, on his third quest for the presidency, he took down another septuagenarian amid a deadly pandemic.The union of Obama and Biden was always moored in intergenerational convenience. Obama was the agent of change, Biden a relic of an older time. Obama’s aides cast a wary eye toward the senator from Delaware. To Biden, politics was tactile. He did not readily inspire.Walloped by Obama in Iowa in 2008, Biden immediately withdrew. Over time, the two men bonded. There was greater warmth between them than between Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, let alone Bush and Dan Quayle. Obama always heard Biden out. On the other hand, the Obamas never invited the Bidens to the White House residence. Barack and Joe shared lunches, not dinners and movies with popcorn.Hiccups and speed bumps left marks. Biden got ahead of Obama on gay marriage. Hunter Biden made headlines with his schemes and hustles. Confronted with the younger Biden boy’s foray into Ukraine and the energy business, Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, expressed discomfort. Like Trump, Hunter’s fate now rests with federal prosecutors.Obama empathized with his vice-president. When Beau Biden, Biden’s older son, was dying, Obama offered a shoulder to lean on. He delivered a stirring eulogy. In their final days in office, Obama gave Biden the presidential medal of freedom. The honor, suffused with affection and tenderness, surprised its recipient. Biden’s successor as vice-president, Mike Pence, met a very different fate.Yet for all Obama’s smarts, he could get things terribly wrong. He failed to anticipate the magnitude of the backlash to the Affordable Care Act, the resonance of birtherism, abhorrent as it was, and the depth and breadth of the emerging national chasm beneath him. Democratic losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterms and the Tea Party with its tricorn hats presaged a sustained demand for a return to the past, the rise of Trump and a tolerance for autocracy within the Republican party.Obama also messed up by viewing Hillary Clinton as his rightful successor, if not his political heir. In 2008, competing against her for the nomination, he derided her as “likable enough”. In 2016, in hindsight, little had changed.Clinton lacked her husband’s capacity to emote and connect. Like Ted Cruz, the Republican Texas senator, there was something awkward, off-putting, which she could not shake. Her comments on Trump’s “deplorables” hurt her much as Mitt Romney’s take on the “47%” did him in 2012. Looking back, Obama miscalculated – much as his brain trust would do in 2020 with Biden.Under Trump, Romney showed a deeper appreciation of where the US stood. It wanted a president not named Trump. A shot at normalcy. Nothing else.On the night of the 2018 midterms, Romney urged Biden to wage one more campaign. “You have to run,” Romney said in a call. Anti-Trump sentiment cost the Republicans the House but at the same moment Utah was sending Romney to the Senate.During the 2020 primaries, Obama and Biden stayed in touch. But until the former vice-president emerged as the presumptive nominee, his president’s endorsement was not forthcoming. Biden lost Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada. Heading to South Carolina, he was low on cash and short on delegates. There, the backing of James Clyburn, the House whip, together with the state’s Black voters, righted Biden’s ship. Debenedetti shows mastery of the tugs and crosscurrents that shape the Democrats’ upstairs-downstairs coalition.African Americans could be among the most socially conservative components of the party. They were not clamoring for open borders or Medicare for All. Obamacare stood as the legacy of the first Black president. Their patrimony was the cruel lash of slavery, not the Harvard faculty lounge or the yoke of the tsar. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders did not speak to them or for them.Obama aides badmouthed Biden in print and on TV. David Axelrod, a senior Obama campaign and White House hand, never cottoned to Biden, and Biden knew it. And yet, behind the scenes, Obama helped clear the field.In the end, Covid and the need for national leadership put Biden over the top. No other Democrat could have beaten Trump.The Destructionists review: brilliant study of Republican rage pre-TrumpRead moreAs president, Biden’s record is uneven. The withdrawal from Afghanistan put a dent in his standing from which he has not recovered. In contrast, US support for Ukraine appears the product of thoughtful conviction. As for the economy, Biden’s efforts to placate his base may well have heightened inflation. Gas prices are coming down but the rest remains stubbornly up.Biden competes with Obama’s legacy and the ghost of FDR. The Democrats hold only 50 Senate seats, control on a knife-edge as the November election looms.“I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” Biden reportedly told one adviser, according to another big political book, This Will Not Pass by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, of the New York Times and CNN respectively.The two men still talk, though.
      The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama is published in the US by Macmillan
      TopicsBooksJoe BidenBarack ObamaBiden administrationObama administrationDemocratsUS elections 2020reviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Telling that fuller story’: Michelle and Barack on their White House portraits

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      ‘Telling that fuller story’: Michelle and Barack on their White House portraitsFormer first lady and former president speak in poetry at unveiling ceremony of official paintings at White House in first visit together since leaving office Even after all these years, she admitted, Michelle Obama still feels a bit odd and awkward inside the White House. “Growing up on Euclid Avenue [on Chicago’s south side],” the former first lady reflected, “I never could have imagined that any of this would be part of my story.”Yet from Wednesday her face will adorn the walls of America’s most famous address for as long as it still stands and presidents still call it home. In their first visit as a couple to the White House since leaving office in 2017, she and ex-president Barack Obama unveiled their official portraits at a ceremony in the East Room.Whereas Oliver Cromwell wanted to be painted warts and all, Barack Obama admitted that he sought some enhancements from artist Robert McCurdy – but in vain. “You’ll note that he refused to hide any of my grey hairs,” he said. “Refused my request to make my ears smaller. He also talked me out of wearing a tan suit.”As a result McCurdy – whose past subjects have included Nelson Mandela, Jeff Bezos, Toni Morrison, Muhammad Ali and Neil Armstrong – depicted the former president standing expressionless in black suit against a white background, as different as it gets from Kehinde Wiley’s version for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery of Obama floating in vegetation and flowers.Meanwhile Sharon Sprung painted Michelle Obama seated on a sofa in the White House’s Red Room wearing a formal light blue dress. Her husband thanked the artist “for capturing everything I love about Michelle: her grace, her intelligence and the fact that she’s fine.”At this Michelle looked half-gratified, half-embarrassed as the audience, crammed with nostalgic Obama alumni and Joe Biden officials, laughed and whooped.The unveiling revived a bipartisan tradition last held a decade ago but this being the Obamas, no portrait is a mere punchline nor just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art. It is also a metaphor for America and who tells its story. To hear them give remarks after Biden was a reminder that while the current president speaks in prose, the Obamas speak in poetry.As first lady for eight years, Michelle once famously observed that she woke up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. On Wednesday she became the first African American woman enshrined for posterity in a first lady portrait. She acknowledged that she has never felt comfortable in the role of political symbol – but understands its importance to future generations.“For me, this day is not just about what has happened,” she said, wearing braids, a painting of founding father and slave owner George Washington above her left shoulder. “It’s also about what could happen because a girl like me, she was never supposed to be up there next to Jacqueline Kennedy and Dolley Madison. She was never supposed to live in this house, and she definitely wasn’t supposed to serve as first lady.”Someone in the audience shouted: “We love you, Michelle!” There was a spontaneous burst of applause. Barack, standing to her right, appeared suddenly moved.Watched by her mother, Marian Robinson, in the front row, Michelle described the portraits of “a biracial kid with an unusual name” and “the daughter of a water pump operator and a stay-at-home mom” as a demonstration that people do not have to make a lot of money or come from a certain group or class or faith to fit in.“Because as Barack said, if the two of us can end up on the walls of the most famous address in the world, then, again, it is so important for every young kid who is doubting themselves to believe that they can too. That is what this country is about.”Indeed, Michelle insisted in a voice quivering with an emotion, the day was not about her or her husband, nor even the portraits. “It’s about telling that fuller story, a story that includes every single American in every single corner of the country so that our kids and grandkids can see something more for themselves.“And as much as some folks might want us to believe that that story has lost some of its shine, that division and discrimination and everything else might have dimmed its light, I still know, deep in my heart, that what we share as my husband continues to say is so much bigger than what we don’t.She added: “Our democracy is so much stronger than our differences, and this little girl from the south side is blessed beyond measure to have felt the truth of that fuller story throughout her entire life – never more so than today.”Such grace notes seemed to be vivid proof that Michelle Obama remains the anti-Donald Trump, the living antithesis of his dark nativist vision and administration run by privileged white males. They were an open invitation for dreamers of “Michelle for president”, though she has always been adamant it won’t happen. And they made the case that these two beautiful, fragile paintings will prove more valuable than anything by Rembrandt or Van Gogh.TopicsBarack ObamaThe US politics sketchMichelle ObamaUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Barack and Michelle Obama return to White House for unveiling of portraits

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      Barack and Michelle Obama return to White House for unveiling of portraitsThe Obamas did not have their unveiling ceremony while Donald Trump was in office Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, returned to the White House on Wednesday for the unveiling of their official portraits, hosted by Joe Biden more than five years after the 44th president left office.Large, formal portraits of presidents and first ladies adorn walls, hallways and rooms throughout the White House. Customarily, a former president returns for the unveiling during the tenure of his successor. But the Obamas, who have remained popular since leaving power, did not have their ceremony while Donald Trump was in office. More

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      Families of 9/11 victims hail killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri

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      Families of 9/11 victims hail killing of Ayman al-ZawahiriDrone strike against al-Qaida leader praised across US political spectrum but 9/11 families press for Saudi accountability Families torn apart by the deadly September 11 terrorist attacks celebrated Sunday’s killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the top al-Qaida leaders behind the 2001 attacks, but they continued demanding accountability for the Saudi Arabian government’s alleged role.How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader Read moreMeanwhile, Democratic politicians touted Zawahiri’s death as a major accomplishment for Joe Biden.The president announced Zawahiri’s killing on Monday during a live televised address from the White House, saying, “Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more.“People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.”Survivors of those killed by the September 11 attacks published a statement on Zawahiri’s killing, expressing gratitude about the al-Qaida leader’s death but expressing a desire to see Saudi Arabia held to account for its alleged role in the terror plot. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.“This news is also a reminder that in order to achieve full accountability for the murders of thousands on September 11 2001, President Biden must also hold the Saudi paymasters accountable for killing our loved ones,” the national chairperson of 9/11 Families United, Terry Strada, said in a statement.Referring to a controversial trip Biden took to Saudi Arabia last month where Biden fist bumped the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Strada added: “The financiers are not being targeted by drones, they are being met with fist pumps and hosted at golf clubs. If we’re going to be serious about accountability, we must hold everyone accountable.”The organization wrote that they have repeatedly requested meetings with the president about punishing the Saudi Arabia government for September 11, but Biden has refused to meet.Barack Obama, for whom Biden once served as vice-president, stood prominently among politicians who hailed Zawahiri’s death.01:05He tweeted in part: “It’s a tribute to President Biden’s leadership, to the members of the intelligence community who have been working for decades for this moment, and to the counter-terrorism professionals who were able to take al-Zawahiri out without a single civilian casualty.”Obama called Zawahiri’s death “proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan”.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, in his own statement on Zawahiri on Twitter, added: “This is a major accomplishment to bring to justice one of the world’s most wanted terrorists who helped orchestrate the cold-blooded murder of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers on 9/11.”Conservatives have had mixed reaction to the announcement of Zawahiri’s killing, with few directly praising Biden for the attack and calling for increased scrutiny of al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan.The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said in a statement that Biden “deserves credit” for approving the strike that killed Zawahiri, but the Republican stalwart noted that the administration needs a “comprehensive plan” to address al-Qaida in Afghanistan.The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, wrote on Twitter celebrating the “brave Americans who took out the terrorist, [al-Zawahiri]”. McCarthy added that a briefing is needed from the Biden administration to address questions over al-Qaida’s remaining in Afghanistan after the American military’s withdrawal from the region between February 2020 and August 2021.On Twitter, the Colorado representative Lauren Boebert also praised Zawahiri’s killing, writing that it “is undoubtedly a win for the world”.“This truly evil man can do no more harm to anyone,” Boebert added. “God bless the USA!”Zawahiri’s death came after his family had moved into a reported safe house in downtown Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, according to White House officials.In the months leading up to his death, the 71-year-old had been spotted several times on a balcony, making al-Qaida propaganda videos.Zawahiri had just stepped on to the balcony Sunday morning when the drone strike that killed him unfolded.TopicsAyman al-ZawahiriUS politicsJoe BidenAl-QaidaChuck SchumerBarack ObamanewsReuse this content More

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      Presidents eulogize Madeleine Albright at funeral: ‘Freedom had no greater champion’

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      Presidents eulogize Madeleine Albright at funeral: ‘Freedom had no greater champion’US leaders reflect on legacy of US secretary of state as family shared memories at Washington National Cathedral Presidents and dignitaries gathered in Washington on Wednesday to remember Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as US secretary of state, while drawing upon her life’s work to warn of the increasing precariousness of freedom and democracy.Family members and colleagues of Albright shared loving and affectionate memories of her during the funeral service at Washington National Cathedral, while US leaders reflected on her legacy.“Freedom endures against all odds in the face of every aggressor because there are always those who will fight for that freedom,” US president Joe Biden said in his eulogy of Albright, who died of cancer last month at the age of 84. “In the 20th and 21st century, freedom had no greater champion than Madeleine Korbel Albright.”Madeleine Albright obituaryRead moreRussia’s war in Ukraine hung heavily over the service, as those who eulogized Albright remembered her denunciation of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion during her final days.In her last opinion piece, for the New York Times, which was published just weeks before her death, Albright wrote: “Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin.”For Albright, the right of a country to determine its own destiny was personal. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, Albright’s family fled the country in the face of the Nazi occupation.After enduring the Blitz bombing in London, Albright’s family returned to Czechoslovakia once second world war ended, only to be driven out again amid the rise of communism. Her family then emigrated to the United States aboard a ship called the SS America.Former US president Bill Clinton, who nominated Albright first as US ambassador to the United Nations and then as secretary of state, noted on Wednesday at the funeral that her life was “sort of a microcosm of the late 20th century in Europe and the United States”.“Today we see in Ukraine all too tragically what Madeleine always knew – that the advance of freedom is neither inevitable or permanent. And that in politics, where the lure of power is strong and the temptation to abuse it is often irresistible, there are no permanent victories or defeats,” Clinton said.Albright’s funeral service came two months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and the war is now poised to enter a new, potentially more dangerous phase. A series of explosions in the neighboring country of Moldova has raised the threat of a larger regional conflict in eastern Europe.Multiple speakers at the Wednesday’s service, which was attended by more than 1,400 people, referenced Albright’s 2018 book on fascism as they addressed the devastation in Ukraine. In her book Fascism: A Warning, Albright sounded the alarm about the rise of autocratic leaders and the need to protect democratic governments.“She knew better than most – and she warned us in her book on fascism – that yes, it can happen here. And time and courage are of the essence,” said Hillary Clinton, who followed in Albright’s footsteps to become secretary of state, in the Obama administration.“If Madeleine were here with us today, she would also remind us this must be a season of action,” Clinton added.While the US and its allies work frantically to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks, Biden took a moment to commend Albright’s commitment to the US-led Nato military alliance, saying she had played a key role in ensuring the partnership remained “strong and galvanized, as it is today”.The president said he learned of Albright’s death as he traveled to the Belgian capital Brussels last month to meet with European leaders and discuss their ongoing aid to Ukraine.When he delivered remarks in the Polish capital of Warsaw, days later, there was a “deafening cheer” at the mention of Albright’s name, Biden said.“Her name is still synonymous with America as a force for good in the world,” Biden said on Wednesday. “She always had a knack for explaining to the American people why it mattered to them that people everywhere in the world were struggling to breathe free.”As the world now braces for a potentially lengthy and even bloodier war in Ukraine, Biden is counting on that message of shared democratic values to resonate with the American people.Reflecting upon the loss of his former adviser and longtime friend, Bill Clinton lamented that Albright was not here to continue preaching the importance of freedom across the globe.Clinton said he last spoke to Albright two weeks before she died. Brushing aside questions about her failing health, Albright instead wanted to talk about building a better future for the next generation.“What kind of world are we going to leave to our grandchildren? That question’s kind of up in the air. But not because of Madeleine Albright,” Bill Clinton said, adding: “We love you, Madeleine. We miss you, but I pray to God we never stop hearing you. Just sit on our shoulder and nag us to death until we do the right thing.”TopicsWashington DCUS politicsJoe BidenHillary ClintonBill ClintonBarack ObamanewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden told Barack Obama he will run again in 2024 – report

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      Joe Biden told Barack Obama he will run again in 2024 – reportPresident ‘thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump’, source tells the Hill, as Trump is readying his own third run Joe Biden has told Barack Obama he will run for re-election in 2024, according to a Washington website, the Hill.Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysRead moreThe site cited two anonymous sources. One was quoted as saying Biden “wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know”.It was not clear when Biden told Obama his plans. But Obama visited the White House earlier this month, to celebrate the Affordable Care Act.Introducing his host, Obama called him “Vice-President Biden”.“That was a joke,” he said, to laughter.Biden was vice-president to Obama from 2009 to 2017. He won the presidency on his own third attempt in 2020 (after short-lived campaigns in 1988 and 2008), beating Donald Trump.00:55At 78, Biden was the oldest president ever inaugurated. If he won again he would be 82 at the start of his second term.Amid competing crises, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the coronavirus and rampant inflation at home, Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted. Most observers expect Republicans to retake Congress in November. But the president has dropped plenty of hints that he does plan to run again.In September, it was widely reported that Biden and aides had told allies he planned to run again. In December, Biden said he would run if he stayed in good health. He has also said Kamala Harris, his vice-president, would be on the ticket again.In his December interview with ABC News, Biden said another Trump candidacy would “increase the prospect of running”.In Brussels in March, Biden referred to Trump again when he said: “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”Trump, 75, is readying his own third run for the presidency.One of the sources who spoke to the Hill said Biden “thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor.”In 2020, Biden surged to victory in the Democratic primary on the back of support from Black voters – and a quickly gathering sense that he was indeed the party’s best hope of beating Trump.According to books and reportage about the 2020 campaign, Obama doubted whether Biden could win.Edward-Isaac Dovere, author of Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump, reports: “Obama was doubtful about [Biden’s] prospects. He didn’t think Biden could be a disciplined enough candidate.”Dovere also says Obama doubted Biden’s stamina for the race, was not sure he had the requisite “swagger” for an American president, and worried his vice-president had “trouble … connecting with crowds”.But Dovere also quotes Jen Psaki, now Biden’s White House press secretary, as saying Obama “undervalued Biden’s political abilities because they had such different styles”.TopicsUS elections 2024Joe BidenDonald TrumpBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More