The Strategic Move by Joe Biden
Joe Biden is in reputation management mode, hiring a veteran campaign and communications strategist to help burnish his legacy at a time when many in his party want him to exit the stage. In a sign of Biden’s intent to remain engaged publicly, his inner circle tapped Chris Meagher, a former Biden deputy press secretary and Defense Department spokesperson, to help him transition past the first 100 days of the Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the hire and granted anonymity to speak freely.
Meagher, who has worked for former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, played an instrumental role in booking Biden’s appearance on The View on Thursday, the people said, his first live interview since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. It is a critical time for Biden, who has come under heavy criticism from Democrats for staying in the presidential race as long as he did last year.
The Challenge of Criticism
At the same time, Biden finds himself buffeted by both sides: The Trump administration is making plans to release the audio of Biden’s interview with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents and raised questions about his mental acuity, POLITICO reported on Wednesday. The recordings — the release of which remains in flux — have long been sought by Trump’s Republican allies to tarnish him. While the transcripts were released long ago, Biden’s allies fear the audio could be used by Republicans in an attempt to further damage his legacy — one of several reasons for bringing on Meagher.
Kelly Scully, a former special assistant and deputy press secretary to Biden, has been Biden’s lone spokesperson post presidency. But her tenure as a government employee dispatched to Biden ends soon.
Biden’s Public Engagement
The timing of Biden’s appearance on The View is notable because it comes after the 100-day mark, a period in which former presidents have typically avoided criticizing their predecessors. Now Biden can take on Trump more directly, the people said. It is also a venue he has often retreated to at fraught moments dating back to 2007, including his first interview after launching his 2020 presidential run and last September as the first sitting president to do so, during which he called Trump a “loser.”
That Thursday’s interview will air live could be exonerating or perilous for Biden, or perhaps somewhere in between. Ultimately, it is a chance for him to rebut criticism that he is in decline.
“If he’s doing these interviews and he’s having a lot of the same verbal gaffes, there should be a conversation if continuing to do interviews helps or hurts him,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic consultant. “But if Biden goes and does the interviews, we see a rested and relaxed and thoughtful Biden, that could play very well.”
Looking Ahead
Biden has already begun inching back onto the national stage with several speeches and appearances this spring. In an interview with the BBC, released on Wednesday, Biden gave a scathing assessment of Trump’s administration, calling Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine give up territory as a part of a peace deal with Russia “modern-day appeasement” and possibility of a NATO alliance break-up a “grave concern.”
“I found it sort of beneath America in the way that it took place,” Biden said of Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Biden also suggested that he had no regrets about the timing of his decision to drop out of the 2024 campaign, which many Democrats believe set Kamala Harris back in her own presidential campaign. Biden said he didn’t think “it would have mattered” if he had dropped out earlier, describing Harris as a “good candidate” who was “fully-funded.”
That analysis of the 2024 election isn’t sitting well with some Democrats.
“There are a lot of young and dynamic leaders in the Democratic Party who are focused on the path forward, and it’s better we focus on them, instead of an old man trying to convince himself and America he isn’t responsible for Donald Trump’s reelection,” said one Democratic operative, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly.
Or as Matt Bennett, of the center-left group Third Way, put it, “I don’t think he’s reading the room at the moment.”
“I think the party, ultimately, will come around to the view that he did a good job as president, that he passed a lot of big things,” Bennett said. “But the horrible devastation we’re witnessing [with the Trump administration] which is undoing a lot of the good that he did and the anger and despair that Democrats feel, makes this an inauspicious moment for him to re-enter the debate.”
Biden appears unlikely to sit on the sidelines. The hiring of an outside communications aide typically comes following a sixth-month period when former presidents are afforded a taxpayer-funded spokesperson bound by the constraints of the Hatch Act, which prevents political activity. Bringing on Meagher earlier — he can retain Scully through July 20 — may allow Biden to more forcefully engage in the public eye.
Conclusion
Ashley Eitenne, a Democratic strategist who served as a senior advisor to Nancy Pelosi as well as presidents Barack Obama and Biden, described Biden’s reemergence as a positive development in response to Trump’s Washington. “I celebrate Joe Biden leveraging his own platform and stature … to lift up and expose the truth about our current leadership and the dangers of where we’re headed, not just as a nation, but as a world,” she said. “This is not a moment for anyone to shrink.”
In addition to the Hur audio and other other post mortems on Biden’s presidency, his allies are also bracing for the release of a new book by a pair of high-profile journalists that promises an “unflinching and explosive reckoning with one of the most fateful decisions in American political history.” The book offers a behind-the-scenes look at Biden’s decision to run “despite evidence of his serious decline — amid desperate efforts to hide the extent of that deterioration,” according to promotional copy for Original Sin, by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, who declined to comment.
Biden has other immediate tasks at hand that an outside communications official could be helpful with: He is at work on his own book, and is said to be building out his library and foundation teams. “I know that Biden is the center of their universe but their book is not the center of ours,” a person close to Biden told POLITICO.
But Tapper and Thompson’s release is an immediate looming headache for Biden. The first excerpts are expected to trickle out as early as next week, and a publicity campaign is expected to span weeks. Last month, Meagher attacked the book, which Thompson plugged in a speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner accepting an award for his White House reporting chronicling the final tumultuous months of Biden’s administration.
Meagher, who joined Biden’s team that same month, declined to comment.
“Not a great look hawking a book based on a false premise while accepting an award based on the same false premise,” Meagher posted to X on April 27. “Yes, Biden was old, but that’s a lot different than an allegation of mental decline that kept him from being able to do the job, which there is no evidence of.”
