What Joe Biden Is Getting Wrong About the 2024 Campaign

It's not about the foreign policy, stupid.

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

Here is a rough translation of the dialogue that has taken place between Joe Biden and other Democratic Party heavyweights the three weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate performance:

BIDEN: I’m staying in the race!

HEAVYWEIGHTS: Joe Biden needs to make a decision about his campaign very soon.

BIDEN: I’m the best person to beat Donald Trump!

HEAVYWEIGHTS: Time is running out, and Biden needs to decide!

BIDEN: I'm the guy that put NATO together…. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, "Joe, get outta the race," I'd get outta the race. The Lord Almighty's not comin' down.

HEAVYWEIGHTS: There’s a deadline, and Joe needs to make the right decision!

You get the drift. It’s becoming increasingly clear that: a) last week’s efforts by Biden to silence his Democratic doubters have not worked; b) Biden’s inner circle is shrinking in the face of elite Democratic concerns; and c) Democratic members of Congress are gonna keep asking Biden what he is going to do until he gives them the answer they want.

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is not going to weigh in on larger “should Biden get out?” debate right now. But what is becoming increasingly clear is that as Biden tries to make his case to stay in the race, he is leaning hard on his foreign policy bona fides. And as someone who has been pretty supportive of Biden’s foreign policy, I think that is a grievous political mistake.

Let’s start with the evidence that Biden’s political response of first resort has been to tout his foreign policy record. If you go through the transcript of Biden’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, what is striking is the number of times Biden talks about foreign policy in response to a political question:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you the same man today that you were when you took office three-and-a-half years ago?

BIDEN: In terms of successes, yes. I also was the guy who put together a peace plan for the Middle East that may be comin' to fruition. I was also the guy that expanded NATO….

STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation that included neurological and cognit-- cognitive tests and release the results to the American people?

BIDEN: I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I'm running the world. Not-- and that's not hi-- sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world..

Madeleine Albright was right. And every single day, for example, today before I came out here, I'm on the phone with-- with the prime minister of-- well, anyway, I shouldn't get into detail, but with Netanyahu. I'm on the phone with the new prime minister of England.

I'm workin' on what we were doin' with regard to-- in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it's gonna stick. I'm takin' on Putin….

STEPHANOPOULOS: The question on so many people's minds right now is, "Can you serve effectively for the next four years?"

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: George. I'm the guy that put NATO together, the future. No one thought I could expand it. I'm the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen. I'm the guy that put together a South Pacific initiative with AUKUS. I'm the guy that got 50 nations out-- not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well to help Ukraine….

And who's gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who's gonna be able to be in a position where I'm able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we're-- we're at least checkmating China now? Who's gonna-- who's gonna do that? Who has that reach?

Biden followed this up with his NATO press conference, in which he held his own on questions of national security and foreign policy. Thet is not surprising: as one analysis noted, “Biden — a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee —appeared more comfortable on foreign policy questions than he was discussing his political future.”

Then there was this from his more recent interview with NBC’s Lester Holt:

HOLT: What do you make of people like Nancy Pelosi, though, who seem to be of the opinion that there is a window for you to make this choice? What aren’t they getting?

BIDEN: It’s essentially a toss-up race. And I think one of the arguments that get made, you have the most successful presidency of any president in modern history, maybe since Franklin Roosevelt. Passed more major legislation no one thought you could get done. Were able to put together a consensus. Were able to unite NATO. Were able to deal in f — foreign policy. Why don’t you just decide to rest on that — on those laurels? And the answer is because the job’s not finished.

Lest one think that this is just Biden’s public rationale for staying in the job, Puck’s Julia Ioffe reports that he’s saying this stuff in private Zoom sessions with Democratic members of Congress. The problem, according to Ioffe’s reporting, is that Biden’s message is not going down well at all:

In a video of the Zoom that I was able to view, you can hear Biden chastising (U.S. Representative Jason) Crow, who asked about the importance of national security to voters. “First of all, I think you’re dead wrong on national security,” the president says, the emotion at times garbling his words. “You saw what happened recently in terms of the meeting we had with NATO. I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is! Tell me who put NATO back together! Tell me who did something that you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son—and I’m proud of your leadership, but guess what, what’s happening, we’ve got Korea and Japan working together. I put AUKUS together, anyway!…. Things are in chaos, and I’m bring some order to it! And again, find me world leader who’s an ally of ours who doesn’t think I’m the most respected person they’ve ever—”

“It’s not breaking through, Mr. President,” said Crow, “to our voters.”

“You oughta talk about it!” Biden shot back, listing his accomplishments again. “On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap!”

So it seems pretty clear that Biden believes — perhaps to the point of megalomania — foreign policy is one of his strong suits. He further believes that Democrats should campaign on national security issues in this election.

And Biden would be right — in a world designed by international relations scholars. President Biden is not wrong in talking about his work with allies in his first term, which has been exceptional. A second-term Trump administration’s foreign policy would diverge in significant ways from Biden’s second term, almost entirely for the worse. Furthermore, to repeat a theme I have been making for well over a decade, U.S. presidents have considerable latitude when it comes to foreign affairs. Voters should care about national security questions more than they do!

But now we arrive at Biden’s political malpractice, because Crow is right about the foreign policy argument failing to resonate with voters. And he is going to continue to be right no matter how Biden campaigns from here on in.