James Biden — presidential brother,
family helper, political wild card
President Biden’s brother James is known in the family as the one who’s
always ready to help. But he also has a history of business dealings that
resulted in recriminations and lawsuits.
By Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/3Ikq3hK
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
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Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | May 31, 2022
James Biden took out his iPhone early one morning in September
2017 and tapped a quick message to his nephew Hunter. It was, as
usual, filled with typos. It was also, as usual, filled with exclamation
points meant to convey his exuberance.
Joe and James Biden at the Democratic National Convention in Denver
in 2008. (Rick Friedman/Corbis/Getty Images)
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
“Hunter, we are cut from the same cloth,” James Biden wrote. “…
You are a fine and yes, a gentle person. Believe it or not, I know you.
Sounds corney,but we both deserve to enjoy the moment. Concen-
trate on the good in our lives and try to step out of all the bullshit
you deal with on a minute to minute basis.”
The exchange comes from a copy of a hard drive that Hunter Biden
purportedly dropped o at a repair shop and never retrieved. A
copy was provided to The Washington Post, and the emails cited in
this article were authenticated by two forensic analysts.
James and Hunter Biden were in the midst of a lucrative deal with
Chinese executives at the time, while Joe Biden was out of public
service for the first time in nearly a half-century, having left the vice
presidency a few months earlier. Hunter Biden was also wrestling
with drug addiction, financial problems and a relationship with his
late brother Beau’s widow that had become public. Amid all that,
Hunter Biden turned to his uncle, at least as much as to his famous
father, for emotional support.
Hunter also relied upon James Biden, who goes by Jim and is
known as Jimmy within the family, on matters of dollars and cents.
Within days of that exchange, Hunter received another email from
his uncle urging him to take advantage of a financial opportunity
related to Joe Biden. The urgency is clear, even if the precise subject
is not.
“You need to call me now,” James Biden wrote on Oct. 1, 2017. “Just
got o the phone with your father...We have the two biggest days of
our business life in front of us!!!!!! We must be smart, or everything
goes up in smoke! Please call me. You MUST remain calm. Tim-
ing could not be worse. Calm and measured!!!! Paybacks can come
later.”
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
James Biden has in many ways always been the protector in the
Biden family, the one who made sure the machinery ran while his
brother soared; President Biden as recently as late last year referred
to him as “my brother Jimmy, who fixes everything.” He has been
there for the bad times, comforting family members in distress,
visiting the bedside of loved ones, getting them into rehab when
needed. He was by his brother’s side at his first wedding, was at the
hospital when Beau died, found a neurosurgeon when Joe had a
brain aneurysm.
He even helped paint Hunter’s law school apartment. When Joe
Biden became president, his brother was tasked with redecorating
the Oval Oce.
Yet from the start of Joe Biden’s political career, James, who is
seven years younger, has also walked up to ethical lines his brother
has avoided, leaving a complicated trail of business dealings and
angry lawsuits.
In a rare phone interview, James Biden said he tries to keep a low
profile, and he used more than a few expletives to describe unwel-
come attention from Republicans and the media. “I’m the guy who
(Obtained by e Washington Post)
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
assists in everything. When it comes to my family I try to be as sup-
portive as I can,” he said. “But this notion of ‘the fixer,’ or any refer-
ence that has a negative connotation, is oensive.”
He added, “The notion I am some underworld figure and I am a
fixer or the cleaner or I’m this or that — I’m a very concerned family
member who tries to protect my family in every way I can, in what
is a very ethical way.”
Several times during the interview, James Biden mused aloud that
he should not be speaking to a reporter, then resumed talking.
Eventually his wife, Sara, entered the room and advised him to cut
o the conversation. “Talk to a real person who knows me,” James
Biden said, then oered, “Guess what? There’s not many who do.”
James Biden has included Hunter in a number of financial deals,
his expressions of undying empathy for his nephew alternating with
excited business pitches. Yet a number of those deals have turned
sour, as onetime business partners have alleged in court documents
that James Biden has said he would bring in business using the
Biden name and connections, then failed to deliver — allegations he
denies.
The Post spoke to associates of James Biden at his request. They
spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive legal
matters and declined to provide specifics. Hunter Biden did not
respond to several requests for comment sent through his attorney,
and the White House declined to comment.
The intricate mesh of relationships — between the president, his
son Hunter, his brother James — illustrates how the president’s
relatives have struggled to make a life in his political shadow.
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 5
The president and his family are certain to face any number of
investigations if Republicans retake at least one chamber of Con-
gress in November’s midterm elections. Republicans have recently
drawn more attention to James Biden, in addition to Hunter, an
indication that they would put him under a spotlight.
James and Hunter Biden are far from the first presidential relatives
to face scrutiny. From Billy Carter to Roger Clinton, presidential sib-
lings have caused political problems, while former president Donald
Trump’s family members regularly sought business opportunities
related to his presidency and even took positions in his administra-
tion.
It is clear that James Biden both soothed his troubled nephew
in moments of genuine despair and worked to cultivate business
opportunities with him. “My Uncle Jimmy is my best friend in the
world,” Hunter said last year during a podcast interview.
Hunter Biden during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn
in April. (Demetrius Freeman/e Washington Post)
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 6
The two men share the light banter of close family members, email-
ing on subjects like the sporting events of Hunter Biden’s children.
In the emails, James Biden at one point asked Hunter for advice on
getting his boat painted at his marina (“They are thieves down in
Fla!!!!!”) and at another advised him on attire for an upcoming din-
ner (“Jeans very casual!!”).
James Biden also frequently encouraged Hunter to take time to
relax, to try yoga and meditation. “It’s worked for you in the past,”
he wrote on Oct. 4, 2017. “Force yourself. Im hitting the gym big
time. Let’s take some stress o, any way we can! I’m with you pal.”
A few weeks after that message, James Biden was enthusiastically
outlining ways for the two of them to leverage political connections
in pursuit of infrastructure projects. They knew ocials in Califor-
nia, James reminded Hunter, including Gov. Jerry Brown, so they
could go after rail projects in the state. There were massive projects
shaping up in Minnesota, he added, where they could tap the Dem-
ocratic delegation for help. In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
would meet with them whenever they were ready.
“We are very driven people,” James Biden exhorted. “We are rifle
shot rather than shot gun people.”
(Obtained by e Washington Post)
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 7
‘You never have to ask Jimmy’
Growing up, the Bidens were a tightknit family, and James Biden’s
role of sticking up for others was clear from an early age. Their
mother, Joe Biden wrote in his book “Promises to Keep,” “once
shipped my brother Jim o with instructions to bloody the nose of
a kid who was picking on smaller kids, and she gave him a dollar
when he’d done it.”
When Joe Biden ran for Senate in 1972, it was a family aair. The
candidate’s sister, Valerie, was the campaign manager. His youngest
brother, Frank, rallied student volunteers. And it was 23-year-old
James’s job to raise money. From the beginning, James was will-
ing to tiptoe up to ethical lines in a way that Joe Biden, by his own
account, was not.
In the heat of the campaign, James reported to Joe that Bill Holay-
ter, president of the International Association of Machinists, was
willing to make a $5,000 donation — but wanted to meet the can-
didate first. When they sat down, the cigar-smoking Holayter asked
Joe Biden if he would support the union on an upcoming issue.
“If you’re asking me how I’m gonna vote on a particular issue, you
can take that check and stick it,” Joe Biden told him, according to
“Promises to Keep.” Joe Biden stormed o, so James Biden chased
his brother to the elevator and asked him to reconsider. When Joe
still refused to accept the check, James took it himself, according to
the book.
James Biden rejects the idea that he was willing to engage in any-
thing that his brother would not. “To get a meeting with that guy,
I had to wait in his lobby for probably six months,” he recalled in
the interview. “Finally he says, ‘Hey, I want to talk to your brother.’
I said fine, I brought him down.” When his brother stormed out of
the room, James Biden said, he persuaded Holayter to apologize.
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 8
“The way that it was portrayed or suggested that I did something
inappropriate or shady or that I crossed the line, or that I was the
one that took the check and he refused?” he said. “Total, absolute
bullshit.” He added, “This notion I did something that he wouldn’t
do? Give me a break.”
Some of James Biden’s support for his brother was more personal
— deeply so. When Biden’s first wife Neilia and their infant daugh-
ter died in a car crash, it was James who identified the bodies, who
delivered the horrific news to Neilia’s parents, who broke the news
to his brother that they were gone.
“Jimmy is among the most generous people in the world, and he
would — the expression that we use in the family, ‘If you have to
ask, it’s too late’ — and you never have to ask Jimmy,” their sister
Valerie, called Val by the family, said during a recent Washington
Post Live event. “He’s always a step ahead of trying to help. He’s
fierce. It’s not a pushover by any means. He is genuine. You always
know where you stand with Jimmy.”
Over the years and especially now, critics have often asked why the
president has tolerated the dubious behavior of his family members,
especially Hunter. That question may never be answered. But it’s
clear that the Bidens have bonded through the kind of tragedy few
other families can imagine.
After Joe’s wife and baby daughter died, James converted a garage
outside Joe’s house into an apartment so he could be a constant
presence as Joe tried to raise two young boys while learning the
ways of the Senate. In those early days, James often tagged along
on congressional trips — including a side jaunt to Europe with
his brother, at the advice of Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.). “I
became basically a Senate wife for the first year,” James Biden later
recalled.
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 9
To Hunter and Beau, he was the fun-loving uncle. The one who
brought the toys and candy, or tossed them into the air at the swim-
ming pool. The one who dragged an artificial tree into their hospital
room when they were recovering from the accident that killed their
mother and sister as the family shopped for a Christmas tree.
Joe Biden has recounted moving Hunter into a New Haven apart-
ment when his son was in law school, and realizing the entire place
needed a new coat of paint. “My brother Jimmy, who fixes every-
thing — my brother Jimmy was with us, and we went down and
bought about 28 gallons of paint,” the president said last year dur-
ing a talk in Connecticut. “For real. It was hot as hell.”
Joe Biden and his brother Jimmy choose their flavors at Ellen’s
Homemade Ice Cream in Charleston, W.Va., during the 2008 campaign.
(Christina Jamison/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 10
Business pursuits and litigation
As vital as James Biden has been in his brother’s personal life, he
has also been a potential liability in his political one. His repeated
eorts at business deals — sometimes using the family name or
enlisting Hunter — have not infrequently ended in recrimination,
bankruptcy or lawsuits. In several cases, as noted by ProPublica and
in Ben Schreckinger’s book “The Bidens,” associates claimed that
James promised to use his status as a Biden to drum up business
but didn’t, which he denies.
Shortly after Joe Biden became a senator, James Biden opened a
nightclub in Wilmington, Del., with bank loans from lenders who
may have been eager to please the new young senator on the Bank-
ing Committee. Joe Biden was in touch with the banks that were
lending money to his brother but did not directly influence the
loans, according to news accounts at the time.
On one occasion in 1975, Joe Biden called Edwards Danforth, chair-
man of the Farmers’ Bank of Delaware, to complain about his broth-
er’s treatment. Biden’s justification, the News Journal reported at
the time, was that he’d only called because the bank was threaten-
ing that a default would be embarrassing for Joe. “They were trying
to use me as a bludgeon,” he said. Eventually, the nightclub folded.
Years later, in 2000, James took out a $353,000 loan from Leonard
Barrack, a prominent Biden donor, according to registry of deeds
documents. Barrack simultaneously hired James’s wife, Sara, and
paid nearly $250,000 for the couple to travel internationally to
work generating business for his firm.
But the relationship fell apart and resulted in competing lawsuits
between Barrack and the Bidens over Sara Biden’s contract and
compensation. Barrack’s firm claimed that, in hiring Sara Biden,
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 11
James Biden had promised to help land clients in part “through
his family name and his resemblance to his brother, United States
Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware,” but they generated business for
themselves rather than the firm.
Sara Biden, who was represented in part by her nephew, Beau
Biden, filed a countersuit. The parties settled in 2004, and Barrack
did not respond to a request for comment.
There is no record that James directly responded to the assertion
in legal papers, but in the phone interview he suggested that the
various lawsuits against him were meritless. “It’s not that I haven’t
made mistakes in my life,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is,
here I sit, anybody can sue anybody for anything. But it would
never be cast in the light that ‘they can sue me just because they
can sue me.’ ”
James Biden declined to respond in detail to the legal claims he’s
faced over the years and referred questions to legal associates, who
declined to address specifics.
A few years after the Barrack dispute, James and Hunter jointly
purchased a controlling interest in a hedge fund called Paradigm
Global Advisors, along with a partner named Anthony Lotito. But
that relationship, too, soured, as the Bidens and Lotito sued each
other for fraud, each side claiming the other had misled them. The
case was ultimately settled.
In a discussion with Marc Maron on his “WTF” podcast last year,
Hunter was asked about getting involved in a hedge fund with his
uncle. “I tried. It didn’t work out. I was sober. I was sober then,” he
said. “It just, it just didn’t work out, you know. I mean, one thing
is that you think that, you know, D.C. is bad. Go to Wall Street. I
mean, it’s just like, oh, my God.”
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 12
He defended James Biden’s role. “Look, my uncle is the most amaz-
ing man, one of the most amazing people I know,” Hunter Biden
said. “Yeah. He is literally there for everyone. He’s my, he’s my best
friend in the world, my Uncle Jim. I mean, he’s an incredible human
being in his own right.”
In another case, after teaming up with Americore Health, a Florida-
based health-care company, James Biden was accused of stealing
blueprints for a rural health-care business and failing to generate
the international investments he’d promised.
In June 2019, two medical service firms who were involved in that
arrangement — Azzam Medical Services and Diverse Medical Man-
agement — sued James Biden and his business partners. Among
other things, they alleged James had cited his family connections
and promised that Joe Biden would promote the firms’ health-care
model in his 2020 campaign.
They also alleged that James touted Joe Biden’s connections to the
labor movement and the Department of Veterans Aairs, promising
the plaintis he’d help them win federal contracts and expand their
model nationwide. James Biden’s attorneys disputed many of the
allegations in the lawsuit, which was settled in 2020.
And in a case that didn’t end up in litigation but has drawn recent
attention, James and Hunter Biden signed a lucrative deal in 2017
with ocials from the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC. As The
Post previously reported, the company and its executives paid $4.8
million to entities controlled by the two Bidens over the course of
14 months — even though the energy projects Hunter Biden dis-
cussed with CEFC never materialized.
The arrangement provided Hunter Biden with a monthly stipend of
$100,000 while his uncle received $65,000, according to records on
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 13
the copy of Hunter Biden’s hard drive, as well as bank documents
obtained by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). James and Hunter
Biden have declined to respond to questions about this arrange-
ment.
A source close to Biden, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
to discuss sensitive matters, declined to comment on several spe-
cific questions about his legal issues, saying only that “Jim Biden
has always maintained that he conducted himself ethically and
honorably in all his business dealings.”
‘He sent in the cavalry: my uncle Jim’
Congressional Republicans are increasingly making it clear that
James Biden as well as Hunter will be a target of their probes.
“Hunter Biden wasn’t the only Biden family member who had con-
nections to the [Chinese] communist regime,” Grassley said in a
recent floor speech. “James Biden did as well.”
But James Biden’s bond with his nephew goes far beyond business
deals, a fact that has played into the president’s own relationship
with his son. When Hunter was in the depths of a drug relapse, he
often would stop answering his father’s anxious calls, and Joe Biden
knew the best way to reach him was to go through James.
“He sent in the cavalry: my uncle Jim,” Hunter Biden wrote in his
memoir. “Uncle Jimmy is my best friend in the world and Dad knew
that if his younger brother asked me to do something, I’d do it.
Uncle Jim has his own superpower: he gets things done.”
At one point in 2018, James Biden flew out to Los Angeles, pulled
Hunter out of a hotel room and checked him into rehab. Hunter
wrote about the encounter in his memoir, and there is further
evidence on the copy of his hard drive, which includes increasingly
urgent messages from his uncle.
MAY 31, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 14
On Sept. 17, 2017, James wrote Hunter an email with the subject
line, “Our relationship ‘Rock Solid’ ” and apologized for not provid-
ing even more comfort.
“You are a fine and (yes) noble man. I will do better from my end,
and start acting like a real friend and partner,” James Biden wrote.
“I am on your side/team period. Forgive me for being so insensitive
to all that you are going thru. If you will permit me, I would like to
start being part of the solution, rather than another problem to deal
with. We will get thru this. I really believe that there are good times
ahead.”
He added, “I love you pal, U Jim.”
About two weeks later, James Biden took out his phone to type
the “corney” message to Hunter. He added other words of encour-
agement, and even indirectly suggested that he might appreciate
Hunter in a way his own father did not.
“Stop beating yourself up, and realize that there is a least one per-
son in this world, who truly appreciates what a quality person you
are,” he wrote. “Your grandparents, your mother, sister, and brother
are looking down on you, and want their Hunter to be happy. I
Couldn’t sleep last night, but all good. As the great philosopher
Happy Gilmore would say, ‘put yourself in your happy place.’ ”
Alice Crites, Tom Hamburger and Craig Timberg contributed to this report.
POLITICS
Abortion has long b
een complicated for Biden.
Now, he leads the fight.
Biden has long described a tension between his faith and his politics.
As president, the potential end of Roe v. Wade makes him the nation’s
highest-profile champion of abortion rights.
By Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/3K3zO56
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
KLMNO
Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | May 3, 2022
Joe Biden became a senator in 1973, just 17 days before the Supreme
Court decided the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. Soon
after, the young senator, a practicing Catholic, told an interviewer
that he disagreed with the decision and that he had views on such
matters that made him “about as liberal as your grandmother.”
President Biden speaks about the leaked Supreme Court dra opinion
on Roe v. Wade before leaving Washington on May 3. (Evan Vucci/AP)
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
“I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went
too far,” he concluded in 1974. “I don’t think that a woman has the
sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
Nearly a half-century later, with Biden evolving along with his party
on the issue of abortion rights, he again declared the court was
moving too far — this time, he argued, in the opposite direction.
“The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to
say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child,
based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think, goes way over-
board,” Biden said on Tuesday in reaction to a leaked Supreme
Court draft opinion proposing to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Throughout his career, Biden’s views on abortion — at least as a
political matter — have steadily shifted in a way that has in recent
years placed him in line with his party but at uncomfortable odds
with his church. And now that he has become the second Catholic
On May 2, an initial dra of a Supreme Court opinion overruling Roe
v. Wade was leaked to Politico. e Post’s legal aairs reporter Ann
Marimow explains. (Video: e Washington Post)
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
president in U.S. history, he suddenly finds himself the country’s
highest-ranking champion of abortion rights as it faces its greatest
challenge since Roe.
“It concerns me a great deal that we’re going to, after 50 years,
decide a woman does not have a right to choose,” Biden told report-
ers as he boarded Air Force One on Tuesday.
Abortion has long been a vexing issue for some Catholic Democrats,
and Biden has been openly conflicted over it. While as president he
has been an ally of abortion rights groups, he has also almost never
used the word “abortion,” as though he finds it uncomfortable — or
politically risky — to do so.
But as a clear supporter of abortion rights, he has been at odds
with a group of American bishops, with some refusing to oer
him Communion and others saying the president — who attends
Mass almost every weekend — has no right to call himself a serious
Catholic.
“For Joe Biden, his gap from the institutional leadership of the
church in this country and also in the Vatican is widening,” said
Massimo Faggioli, a Villanova University theology professor
and author of “Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States.”
“Because politically, he has to defend Roe v. Wade, to legislate on it
probably. That will expose him to even more accusations that he’s a
heretic, he’s not a Catholic, and that all Catholics who voted for him
are heretics.”
The only other Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, confronted
more open prejudice for his faith and famously gave a speech to
Protestant ministers two months before the election to clear the air.
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is
absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president, should
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
he be Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his
parishioners for whom to vote,” Kennedy declared.
But Kennedy was elected more than a decade before Roe v. Wade, so
he did not confront the conflict over abortion as Biden does.
“He is a Catholic president who has no real majority in Congress,
but even less in his church,” Faggioli said of Biden. “This is a prob-
lem that Kennedy did not have.”
And while Biden has received support from the Vatican, with Pope
Francis welcoming him and protecting him from the sometimes-
vocal criticism of his American coreligionists, that relationship
could now grow more complex. Biden, as the nation’s most promi-
nent Catholic, could shift from defending an existing law — one
that has been accepted precedent for nearly a half-century — to
actively pressing for new legislation to codify abortion rights in law.
It could also mark a new role for Biden himself. In five decades of
public life, he has sometimes signaled unease with going against
church teachings, but now he has a political imperative to do just
that, and in a high-profile way.
“He is the most prominent Catholic political spokesman right now,
and this is a uniquely important period for him to have a strong
voice on the issue,” said Mark J. Rozell, who co-edited the book
“Catholics and US Politics After the 2016 Elections.”
Biden’s complex feelings on abortion — an apparent discomfort,
combined with a sense that the procedure should not be banned —
mirror those of many Americans, however. Because of that, Rozell
suggested Biden’s message could resonate if he handles the issue
forthrightly.
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 5
“If he can speak forcefully and eectively on this issue, representing
the angst that not only Democrats but swing voters feel, that could
be transformative in this election cycle,” said Rozell, dean of the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
“It is a compelling moment for the president.”
Biden on Tuesday nodded toward some of his own views, with a
reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century theologian.
“Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically con-
cluded, that the existence of a human life and being is a question,”
Biden said. “Is it at the moment of conception? Is it six months? Is
it six weeks? Is it quickening, like Aquinas argued?”
A White House ocial, speaking on the condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to be identified, said that Biden
“has been very consistent over the years that he will not impose his
personal faith on others” and that the president supports codifying
Roe v. Wade.
The position Biden landed on for much of his career has been to
support abortion rights but oppose federal funding for the proce-
dure. At times, he has opposed such funding even in cases of rape
and incest, a position that aligned him with Republicans but put
him out of step with other prominent Catholic Democrats such as
the late senator Edward M. Kennedy.
For decades, Biden also supported what’s known as “Mexico City
policy,” which prohibits U.S. funding for foreign organizations that
perform or actively promote abortion. And in 1982, Biden was
among the few Democrats to vote for a constitutional amendment
that would have let states bypass Roe v. Wade and restrict abortion.
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 6
At the time, Biden said it was “the single most dicult vote I’ve
cast as a U.S. senator,” adding, “I’m probably a victim, or a product,
however you want to phrase it, of my background.”
As he approached his 2008 presidential campaign — he dropped
out and ended up becoming then-Sen. Barack Obama’s running
mate — he mused about the tension between his faith and his polit-
ical role. “I’m a practicing Catholic, and it is the biggest dilemma
for me in terms of comporting my religious and cultural views with
my political responsibility,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in
April 2007.
To his hometown paper, he described himself as “middle-of-the-
road” on abortion and conceded that “I may not be what the party’s
looking for. … I may not be ‘pure’ enough about abortion rights.”
Biden noted that he had voted to limit so-called partial-birth abor-
tion — but had also opposed restrictions to Roe v. Wade. “And so,”
he said, “I’ve made everybody angry.”
As Biden entered the 2020 presidential primaries, he found himself
needing to appease a Democratic Party that had shifted, becoming
more emboldened and unified on abortion rights, as well as wom-
en’s rights more generally.
A key moment during his presidential campaign came when he
reversed his long-held position on the Hyde Amendment, which
prohibited federal funding for abortion. He was initially resistant to
changing but faced an uproar within the party.
So one night in Atlanta, he read from his notes, deviating from the
teleprompter to reverse the position he had held for four decades,
saying the growing assault on Roe had persuaded him circum-
stances had changed. It was a sign to abortion rights groups that he
was willing to shift and oppose the Hyde Amendment.
MAY 3, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 7
“The Biden administration is absolutely an ally in the fight for
reproductive freedom and protecting abortion access,” said Sam
Lau, the senior director of advocacy media at the Planned Parent-
hood Action Fund. “At the same time, more can and must be done
to blunt the barrage of attacks.”
Biden, in fact, told Planned Parenthood Action that as president he
would be an ally.
“We will protect women’s constitutional right to choose,” he said in
a June 2020 video. “I am proud to stand with you in this fight.”
They didn’t know at the time how fierce the fight would ultimately
become.
The Biden-Trump rematch, in many ways,
has already begun
Biden and Trump appear to be nudging each other into a rare face-o
between a sitting president and the predecessor he unseated
By Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/3K4SzW6
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
KLMNO
Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | September 26, 2022
President Biden was at a Democratic reception in Maryland a few
weeks ago when his rhetoric turned toward an increasingly fre-
quent topic — “what Trump is doing and the Trumpers are doing.”
An audience member called out, “Lock him up!” and Biden went
on to cite “the new polls showing me beating Trump by six or eight
points.”
President Biden and former president Donald Trump have faced early
pushback from their respective parties and voters on potential 2024
reelection campaigns. (Video: Blair Guild/e Washington Post)
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
A few days earlier, former president Donald Trump was at a rally in
Pennsylvania when he, too, turned toward a frequent topic: “We’re
leading Biden … by record numbers in the polls.” He said three
times, with growing enthusiasm, “So I may just have to do it again!”
The country seems to be barreling toward a rematch that few vot-
ers actually want, but that two presidents — one current, one for-
mer — cannot stop talking about. Biden and Trump both say they
are planning to make their decisions in the coming months, but
with a lingering codependency between them, they each appear to
be nudging the other into what would be a rare faceo between the
same two candidates four years apart.
In some sense, given the growing attacks, a 2024 grudge match is
already underway. But it is less a heavyweight rematch that the
country is eager to see and more of a rerun that few seem to be
looking forward to. Neither Biden nor Trump is enthusiastically
embraced by his own party, according to a Washington Post-ABC
News poll released Sunday.
Some 56 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning indepen-
dents said they want the party to nominate “someone other than
Biden” in 2024, and 35 percent want him to run for a second term.
Among those under age 40, a resounding 75 percent want the party
to pick someone other than Biden, despite his recent action on
climate change and student loan forgiveness, two issues thought to
appeal to younger voters.
“I don’t think Biden has done a bad job by any means,” said Adam
Kane, a 48-year-old museum director from Peacham, Vt., adding
that he likes and respects Biden. “But it’s just time for some fresh
leadership. He’s just too old, is what it comes down to. It’s time to
pass the torch to the next generation.”
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
Biden, 79, will be celebrating his 80th birthday this November and
is already the nation’s oldest president. Trump turned 76 in June.
Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are divided over
Trump, with 47 percent saying the party should nominate him and
46 percent preferring someone else. It is a stronger showing than
Biden’s, but it also reflects a marked drop in support from when
Trump was in oce; a 2019 Post-ABC poll found 67 percent of
Republicans and Republican leaners wanted the party to nominate
Trump for a second term.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
If they were to run against each other, registered voters were split
almost down the middle, with 48 percent supporting Trump and
46 percent supporting Biden, the Post-ABC poll showed, within the
margin of error. In 2020, Biden won the national popular vote by
4.5 percentage points.
“Trump is too much, and Biden is too little,” said Howard Walker, a
54-year-old Democrat from New York. He voted for Biden in 2020,
thinks Trump has turned the Republican Party into a cult and says
a Trump victory in 2024 would mean the end of democracy. But he
no longer views Biden as the best candidate.
“Sometimes he’s there, sometimes he’s not,” Walker said. “Some-
times he tells long grandma stories that go nowhere, which is what
old people do. And that’s okay, but that’s not what we need in a
president.”
Many Republican voters, similarly, say they would support Trump if
that were their only option, but they are yearning for a new leader.
“It would be best if someone else is running,” said Karin Cabell, a
58-year-old Republican from Hazelton, Pa. “It would be nice to just
have fresh blood on both sides.”
Biden and Trump, though, are in a sense each other’s nemesis, and
both may have trouble walking away from a rematch.
Trump views Biden as having unfairly taken the presidency from
him, creating elaborate explanations for why he lost that have no
basis in reality. Biden views Trump as an existential threat to the
country’s founding principles, and sees himself as uniquely posi-
tioned to prevent Trump from regaining power. Unseating Trump in
2020 remains one of Biden’s proudest accomplishments.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 5
“Why would I not run against Donald Trump if he’s the nominee?”
he asked in an ABC News interview in December.
The White House has recently seen an advantage in returning to a
familiar foil, particularly heading into the midterm elections, and
Biden has increasingly had Trump on his mind, or at least on his
lips. “The only reason I ran is because Donald Trump was running,”
he said at a June 10 fundraiser in Los Angeles.
At a Maryland fundraiser in late August, Biden called Trump’s
“extreme MAGA philosophy” something that is “almost like semi-
fascism.” It was a line that aides said later was unplanned, but
unsurprising given Biden’s views. He also said “Trump and the
extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice: to go back-
wards, full of anger, violence, hate, and division.”
Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the final presidential debate of 2020,
on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville. (Jabin Botsford/e
Washington Post)
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 6
Biden has been road-testing several phrases to brand the Repub-
licans who follow Trump. He has called them “The Trumpies” and
“ultra-MAGA” and “MAGA Republicans,” and he has declared that
“this is not your father’s Republican Party.” He says there are still
mainstream Republicans he can work with, but “there is no ques-
tion that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and
intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that
is a threat to this country.”
Biden has sharpened his focus on Trump and escalated his rhetori-
cal attacks, to the point that his central political message is now the
importance of keeping Trump and his followers from power.
“Folks, you can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. Not a
joke. I’m being deadly earnest now. You can’t be pro-insurrection
and pro-democracy,” he said in Maryland. “You can’t support law
enforcement and call the mob that attacked the police on January
6th in the United States Capitol ‘patriots.’ ”
During remarks on Friday, he warned, “It’s become a litmus test in
their party to pledge loyalty to Donald Trump by buying into the
‘big lie.’ ”
Similarly, Trump, in his recent rallies, can mention Biden nearly
two dozen times in a single event, asserting that Biden is doing
a much worse job as president than he did and boasting that he
would easily win a rematch.
“A poll just came out. Did you see it?” he said at a Sept. 17 rally in
Ohio. “I’m 18 points up on Biden. Who the hell wouldn’t be? Who
wouldn’t be?”
He criticized Biden over gas prices — both for allowing them to rise
in the first place and for using petroleum reserves to lower them.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 7
And he insisted the reduced prices would not last: “Right after the
election, it’s going to double up and go higher than anybody ever
believed.”
“Trump was right on everything,” Trump continued. “And I believe I
was. I was right on everything. Including Afghanistan and Ukraine.
The Biden administration is outrageous.”
He also responded to Biden’s Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia, where
the president warned that Trump was seeking to tear apart the
fabric of democracy, saying those remarks amounted to “the most
vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American
president.”
He said Biden was in eect branding Trump supporters as “enemies
of the state.” He added, “He’s an enemy of the state, you want to
know the truth. The enemy of the state is him and the group that
control him, which is circling around him: ‘Do this, do that, Joe,
you’re going to do this, Joe.’ ”
One factor complicating Trump’s potential presidential run is the
growing series of investigations and lawsuits against him, which
appear to be picking up steam. Some analysts believe his legal trou-
bles will make it harder for him to run, since he will need to devote
time and resources to his legal defense. Others argue that Trump is
even more likely to seek the White House now, as a form of protec-
tion against the legal challenges.
The United States has a rich history of presidential rematches, dat-
ing as far back as John Adams, who defeated Thomas Jeerson in
1796 only to lose to him four years later. But there are few direct
parallels to what could transpire between Biden and Trump in
2024.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 8
It is highly unusual for a sitting president to be unseated, then run
against his successor. Most defeated presidents — George H.W. Bush
was the last one — head into a quiet retirement from politics. In
this, as in so much else, Trump is an anomaly, choosing instead to
barnstorm the country to claim falsely that he was cheated.
The closest parallel to a potential Biden-Trump rerun may be the
1892 race between Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. Cleve-
land served one term as president before being unseated by Harri-
son, then he tried to get his old job back, and ultimately succeeded.
Their second campaign focused largely on the same issues that had
dominated the first, such as tari rates, and it hardly electrified
the nation. “No one showed much interest in the result,” historian
Henry Adams wrote.
“The 1892 election was one of the quieter ones in American history,”
said Troy Senik, a former speechwriter for President George W.
Bush and author of “A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improb-
able Presidency of Grover Cleveland.” “Because Cleveland spent
much of it plagued by gout and Harrison was preoccupied with
the health of his wife, who was fighting an ultimately fatal case of
tuberculosis.”
Despite lively political cartoons — some referring to an out-of-wed-
lock child that Cleveland had allegedly fathered — the candidates
lacked the mutual loathing of Biden and Trump. “Between the two
candidates themselves, there didn’t appear to be animosity,” said
Charles Hyde, president and CEO of the Benjamin Harrison Presi-
dential Site.
In fact, when Harrison was sworn into oce in 1889, photos show
the recently ousted Cleveland holding an umbrella over his head as
the new president took the oath of oce. A few years later — after
SEPTEMBER 26, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 9
Harrison defeated Cleveland, and Cleveland in turn defeated Har-
rison — some encouraged Harrison to run yet again in 1896, for a
third head-to-head match.
“Harrison gave it some brief consideration, and then dispelled any
notion he’d run again,” Hyde said. “After he lost the election of 1892,
he said he felt like a man released from prison.”
Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
WHITE HOUSE
As Biden and Xi
meet, can their
old connection avert a clash?
e two spent hours together before they rose to lead their nations.
But times have changed dramatically.
By Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/3K3A444
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
KLMNO
Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | November 12, 2022
Joe Biden shook hands with Xi Jinping that day in 2011 and the two
vice presidents walked up a red carpet to the strains of their coun-
tries’ national anthems, until Biden paused unexpectedly before a
Chinese ocial with a full head of hair. “If I had hair like yours, I’d
be president,” he cracked, breaking the atmosphere of stately diplo-
macy.
en-Vice President Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in
2012 displaying shirts from students at a California school. (Frederic J.
Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
Later in the whirlwind trip, Biden made a more serious point:
“President Obama and I want to see a rising China. We don’t fear a
rising China.”
More than a decade later, the two men are slated to meet again
after Biden arrives Sunday night in Bali, their first face-to-face
meeting since Biden became president and Xi consolidated his posi-
tion as the strongest Chinese leader in recent memory.
Biden certainly has not acquired the thick mane of the Chinese dip-
lomat. His administration now very much does fear a rising China.
And U.S. ocials are hoping that — somehow — the personal con-
nection the two men forged more than a decade ago can soften the
often hostile, sometimes volatile and potentially dangerous stando
between two global behemoths.
The Biden-Xi meeting is perhaps the most consequential encounter
of a six-day foreign trip that will circumnavigate the globe, and it
comes at the fulcrum of Biden’s presidency. He departs just after
voters delivered a verdict on the first two years of his tenure, giving
him better-than-expected results but possibly costing Democrats
control of at least one chamber of Congress.
It also comes as the Pentagon issues fresh warnings that China
poses the “most comprehensive and serious challenge to U.S.
national security.” With colliding positions on trade, Ukraine and
especially Taiwan — and even fears of a global U.S.-China cold war
— the pressure on Biden could hardly be greater.
The question, diplomats say, is whether their old connection can
be enough to mitigate the bitterness of the rivalry between the two
superpowers.
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
“We’re in an awful dynamic, and what is being put to the test is
whether there is enough of a relationship, enough respect and abil-
ity to listen,” said Daniel Russel, a U.S. diplomat who helped plan
Biden’s trip to meet with Xi in 2011. “There’s something there. These
guys really do know each other. And they have a legacy, a relation-
ship.”
He added, “It’s the one thing we have to work with — that is kind of
the only thing we’ve got going for us in slowing the death spiral of
the U.S.-China relationship.”
While Biden arrives at the Group of 20 summit in Bali with new
political challenges after democratic elections put Republicans on
the verge of a House majority, Xi comes strengthened, just weeks
after steamrolling any opposition to extend his autocratic reign by
at least another five years.
Biden and Xi walk across the Dujiangyan irrigation system in the
province of Sichuan in 2011. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
“Xi Jinping is feeling all-powerful in his internal politics,” said John
Delury, a professor of Chinese studies at Seoul’s Yonsei University.
“China is rising and feeling stronger and stronger in the relation-
ship, and Xi is going to bring that into his meeting with Biden.”
The tension between the two leaders’ identities lent drama to their
2011 encounter and may do so again this week. One is a devoutly
Catholic Irish American who prides himself on a middle-class
upbringing and a jovial persona. The other is a faithful Communist
Party member who has cultivated an image as a pragmatic man of
the people.
Both are deep institutionalists who have come up in diametrically
opposed political systems and are now locked in a battle that Biden
has cast as an existential test of democracy versus autocracy.
At one time, they referred to each other in glowing terms, but no
more. Biden has called his onetime friend “a thug.” Xi recently
called Biden “my old friend,” but his government’s statements of
hostility toward the United States are unmistakable.
Biden and Xi in the White House Roosevelt Room in 2012. (Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images)
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 5
Planting the seeds of a relationship
The hope of a detente, however frail, comes from a moment shortly
after Barack Obama took oce when the White House was eager to
get a sense of Xi, who was a rising figure and presumptive leader of
China but also an enigma.
“Xi was a bit of an unknown commodity — he had not served in
the type of post that led to a lot of interaction with Americans,”
said Ben Rhodes, who was Obama’s deputy national security
adviser. “There was a real benefit in having somebody spend a lot
of time with the guy to take his measure, get to know him and set
up Obama’s capacity to hit the ground running with Xi when he
became president.”
Biden had traveled to China only twice before, but he plunged into
the task. He and Xi sat for tea and held several dinners, formal
and informal. They held lengthy meetings in Beijing and traveled
to Sichuan province to tour a centuries-old irrigation project. They
visited a school, where Xi signed basketballs and Biden shot hoops
(successfully scoring after a half-dozen tries).
Biden made news in Beijing when he slipped away for a lunch of
pork buns, noodles and cucumbers at a small, family-run restau-
rant (it was known for its pig intestines, which Biden apparently
skipped), joined by his granddaughter Naomi, who had studied
Mandarin.
While Chinese leaders were criticized for being wealthy and distant,
Biden dug into a meal that cost the equivalent of $12. The action
won popular coverage on Chinese social media, though it may have
discomfited his hosts with their more aloof style of leadership.
But Xi himself quickly showed signs of being a new, less formal
kind of Chinese leader, if not quite an American-style politician.
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 6
“It was clear to me that Xi Jinping was trying to learn more from
Biden as a peer, about how you do it, what is it like,” Russel said.
“He was about to embark on this incredible project leading China.
We had no idea at the time all of the plots and ambitions he had
in the back of his mind, but he wanted to know more. This is not a
person who had much experience dealing with the world.”
When Xi made a reciprocal visit to the United States six months
later, Biden toasted him at a State Department luncheon and hosted
him for dinner at the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s ocial
residence. Later in the trip, Biden met Xi in Los Angeles, where
they toured a school.
“What Biden’s trip helped rearm for us was that [Xi] is ambitious,
he’s a larger personality, and we’re going to have to deal with a dif-
ferent type of Chinese leader,” Rhodes said. “The way Xi behaved on
those trips, you could tell he was more of a politician than an appa-
ratchik.”
Once Xi became president, Biden’s interactions were more limited
as Obama took the primary role. He did travel to China in 2013 —
accompanied by his son Hunter, who met with a Chinese business
partner during the trip — and spent more than five hours with Xi.
Xi continued to confirm early impressions of his bolder, more per-
sonal style: Meeting with Obama in 2013 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.,
he broke out a bottle of hard liquor during a working dinner to
toast his fellow president.
Exaggerated interactions
Like any number of stories Biden tells, those involving him and Xi
have grown more elaborate over time. While they unquestionably
spent large amounts of time together, Biden has dramatically over-
stated their engagements.
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 7
He has repeatedly claimed, for example, that they traveled 17,000
miles together in China and the United States. A White House
ocial said Biden was referring to the total distance he traveled to
attend the meetings — not necessarily their actual time together —
but even that does not fully add up, according to The Washington
Post’s Fact Checker.
Biden has also pegged the time they spent together when he was
vice president at 24 or 25 hours, and as president, Biden has spent
perhaps 10 more hours on the phone with Xi. Yet his estimates of
their interactions have ranged far beyond that.
In March, he said the two had had “over 36 hours of private meet-
ings.” A month later, he referred to it as “90-some hours of talking
or meeting.” About four hours later, he remarked, “I think it’s now
up to 70-some hours with Xi Jinping.”
Biden meets with Xi inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in
2013. (Lintao Zhang/Pool/AP/Getty Images)
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 8
Since then, he has cited their meetings on 12 occasions, often alter-
nating between “76 hours” and “78 hours,” although he recently
shaved o 10 hours and said they’d spent 68 hours together.
Biden also often says he has spent more time with Xi than any
other leader has, something that is also probably a stretch. Obama
spent significant time with Xi after Biden’s initial visits, and foreign
policy analysts say that Russian President Vladimir Putin almost
certainly has been with Xi more than any American president.
Xi is a primary character in one of the most frequent stories Biden
tells. He has recounted it at a General Motors plant in Detroit; an
infrastructure event in Rosemount, Minn.; a White House Hanuk-
kah menorah-lighting ceremony; an Equal Pay Day event; a gather-
ing of U.S. troops in Poland; and a Hispanic Heritage Month recep-
tion.
In the anecdote, Biden recalls being with Xi on the Tibetan Plateau
when Xi asked him, “Can you define America for me?” Biden says
he responded, “I can, in one word: possibilities.” Telling the story
in July 2021, Biden elaborated, “Possibilities — it’s what America
is built on. It’s one of the reasons why we’re viewed sometimes
as being somewhat egotistical. We believe anything is possible in
America.”
Aides who were with Biden say that they do not recall that precise
exchange but that it would have been in keeping with the leaders’
open-ended conversations meant to probe each other’s world views.
“They were unburdening themselves and trying to explain and con-
vey what kind of a country are we, what do we believe?” Russel said.
Biden worked to draw out Xi, quoting William Butler Yeats or
oering an aphorism he said came from his father: “The only thing
worse than war is unintended war.”
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 9
‘We’re not old friends’
But any bond has frayed over the years as China has taken on a new
ambition and aggressiveness under Xi. Biden during his presiden-
tial campaign called him a “thug,” albeit “a smart guy.” He has said
his counterpart does not have a democratic “bone in his body.”
And perhaps mindful of previous presidents who believed they had
a rapport with Putin, Biden has dismissed the idea that he and Xi
are buddies. “Let’s get something straight — we know each other
well, we’re not old friends,” he said in June 2021. “It’s just pure busi-
ness.”
But he has also referred, almost wistfully, to a time when the two
engaged in a seemingly genuine eort to understand each other.
“We’ve spent an awful lot of time talking to one another, and I
hope we can have a candid conversation tonight as well,” Biden
Biden speaks virtually with Xi in November 2021. (Demetrius Freeman/
e Washington Post)
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 10
said before a virtual meeting in 2021. “Maybe I should start more
formally, although you and I have never been that formal with one
another.”
“I’m very happy to see my old friend,” Xi responded.
The politics in both countries have changed radically since 2011,
and the two superpowers are far more openly antagonistic.
“I think Xi Jinping believes his advantage on any American presi-
dent is they’ll be gone before he is. He sits atop a system he has
total control over,” Rhodes said. “He looks at a Joe Biden and
knows, ‘I will be president of China after you are president of the
United States.’ ”
Xi himself has changed, Rhodes added, which will force a recalibra-
tion from Biden.
“The Xi Jinping of 2022 is not the Xi Jinping of 2011,” Rhodes said.
“That was a guy who was probably trying to ingratiate himself
because he was a newcomer. Now he is a guy who thinks he’s the
most powerful man in the world, even more powerful than the
president of the United States. It’s the dierence between the new
kid on the block and the bully on the block.”
A senior administration ocial said White House aides expect the
meeting to be a “substantive and in-depth conversation” between
the two leaders but did not anticipate substantive progress on
major issues.
Instead, the ocial said, White House ocials view the meeting as
an eort for Biden and Xi to understand each other’s priorities and
establish a “floor” for the relationship to ensure lines of communi-
cation remain open at times of tension.
NOVEMBER 12, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 11
“I’m not willing to make any fundamental concessions,” Biden said
during a news conference on Wednesday. “I’ve told him: I’m looking
for competition — not conflict,” he added.
Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary who knows both men,
compared their current interaction to “two boxers circling, really
trying to weigh just exactly what the strengths and weaknesses are
of the other side.”
He added, “I think deep down, both understand that in many ways,
there has to be a better way for both countries to deal with one
another rather than constantly threatening to destroy one another.
In the personality for both of these leaders, there is a greater strain
of wanting to see if there’s a way to accommodate the other. But
who the hell knows — sometimes events can destroy the best of
intentions.”
WHITE HOUSE DEBRIEF
B
randon returns, darkly:
Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme
With “Let’s go, Brandon,” Biden’s critics found a way to curse him. His support-
ers are seizing on the “Dark Brandon” meme to vaunt his superpowers.
Analysis by Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/3YpLPWY
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
KLMNO
Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | August 8, 2022
It’s not President Biden as many have come to know him. He’s not
the aviator-wearing average Joe with familiar family folkisms, the
grandpa who plays with his dogs, the ice cream aficionado.
In one image, he is in a lifeguard chair, lightning bolts coming out
of his hands as he declares, “Let there be jobs!” In another, he’s sit-
President Biden on Aug. 7. In memes, his supporters are depicting
him with laser eyes and lightning powers. (Demetrius Freeman/e
Washington Post)
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
ting in a chair that evokes Game of Thrones. In yet more, his eyes
are glowing with lasers, or he is bearded and wearing an eye patch.
At times there is rubble in his wake.
Meet Dark Brandon.
Over the past few weeks, Democrats have attempted to co-opt one
of the most searing catchphrases that Republicans have pinned on
Biden, turning the “Let’s go, Brandon” meme around and reclaim-
ing it as their own version of Biden fan fiction.
The new liberal-driven meme is meant to depict Biden as having
superpowers, able to smite an al-Qaeda leader and pass legislation
through Congress with ease.
Rather than an ineective president inspiring Republican vitriol
and earning historically low approval ratings, he is a superhero
familiar with the dark arts and able to change the course of history.
The tone reflects the shift in outlook at the White House, from a
struggle to accomplish items on Biden’s agenda to a mood of more
swaggering confidence. The imagery, which has roots among anti-
Biden users on social media, has quickly gone from some of the far
corners of the internet into more mainstream use by administration
ocials, liberal commentators and U.S. senators.
“Dark Brandon is crushing it,” tweeted deputy White House press
secretary Andrew Bates, with an image of Biden with pupil-less red
eyes and text that reads, “Your malarkey has been going on for long
enough, kiddo.”
Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital strategy, also
tweeted an image of Biden smiling with red eyes, his hair haloed
against a dark background. He did it on his ocial White House
account, he wrote, to ensure that it goes into the historical archives.
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
Some have added Biden-isms to the memes (“Dark Brandon said
‘here’s the deal’ and then there was a deal,” wrote Megan Apper, a
senior adviser in the Bureau of Global Public Aairs at the State
Department). Others in the White House have openly ruminated
about changing their Twitter biographies to state that they work for
“Dark Brandon” rather than the 46th president of the United States.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted an image of Dark Brandon
after the Senate approved the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act of
2022, which includes a number of key Biden priorities.
Imagery around Biden has taken dierent forms in recent years.
During his time as vice president, the satirical Onion portrayed him
as a sort of goofy uncle who washed his car shirtless in the White
House driveway, while “Saturday Night Live” imitations played up
his toothy smile.
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
To his supporters, he has often been a cool yet folksy guy wearing
aviator sunglasses and driving a Corvette. To his critics, he is the
bumbling, gae-prone elderly president who recently fell o his
bike.
Early in his presidency, the “Let’s go, Brandon” tag tapped into the
invective that many Republicans were aiming at Biden.
The phrase originated with a vulgar chant that broke out in Octo-
ber 2021 at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway. The crowd was
screaming “F--- Joe Biden!,” but an NBC Sports reporter — inter-
viewing NASCAR driver Brandon Brown on air — quipped, “You can
hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”
Supporters of Donald Trump claimed that the media was censoring
anti-Biden content, the exchange went viral, and a shorthand for
vulgarity directed at the president was born.
Yard signs with the phrase were put up. Trump supporters lined
streets along Biden’s motorcade holding signs or chanting it. Rep.
Bill Posey (R-Fla.) wrapped up a speech on the House floor by say-
ing, “Let’s go, Brandon,” and it has been the focus of several songs,
including one from Kid Rock. Even in Rehoboth Beach, Del., not far
from Biden’s vacation home, stores sell T-shirts with the phrase.
Biden himself did not seem aware of the coded phrase. When he
and first lady Jill Biden were taking calls on Christmas Eve for the
NORAD Santa tracker, one man ended his call by saying, “Merry
Christmas, and let’s go, Brandon.”
“Let’s go, Brandon, I agree,” the president responded.
Several months later, during the White House correspondents’ din-
ner, Biden joked about the phrase. “Republicans seem to support
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 5
one fella, some guy named Brandon,” he said. “He’s having a really
good year, and I’m kind of happy for him.”
The phrase “Let’s go, Brandon” has waxed and waned in popular-
ity among right-wing online influencers since it started in Octo-
ber 2021, according to a Washington Post analysis of political text
content on both sides of the political spectrum. Lately, though, it
has ticked up again after Trump was greeted with chants of the
phrase at a golf tournament, and it’s more frequently used than at
the beginning of the year — a trend that perhaps inspired the left to
pay attention to the meme again.
The Dark Brandon imagery began to gain traction in March and
April, but often in ways that were not complimentary of Biden. That
changed over the past week or so, particularly after the killing of al-
Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Pro-Trump and anti-Biden merchandise was for sale at the Conservative
Political Action Conference in Dallas on Aug. 4. (Brandon Bell/Getty
Images)
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 6
Biden supporters en masse began referring to him as Dark Bran-
don, with imagery of the president as the shadowy dark lord who
authorized a drone strike. Some noted that he was sick with the
coronavirus while doing so.
“Dark Brandon strikes again,” wrote one user, with an image of
Biden wearing aviators and eating ice cream as a bomb explodes in
the background.
They are using a similar aesthetic to Dark MAGA, an online move-
ment that uses imagery of Trump and calls on him to seek political
vengeance.
Critics on Monday pointed to what they alleged was Nazi imag-
ery in the background of some of the images. Bates had tweeted a
meme that placed Biden — with facial hair and an eye patch — on
the movie poster for “The Dark Knight.”
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 7
“The Malarkey Will End,” it read. “The Dark Brandon Rises.”
Conservative commentators pointed to the background of the
poster, saying it included an image of an eagle that was used as a
Nazi symbol.
“So Biden’s Deputy White House Press Secretary, @Andrewjbates46,
is posting literal Nazi memes on Twitter and our corrupt media is
completely silent about it,” wrote Donald Trump Jr. “I’m sure that
if this was a Trump WH staer, the media would treat it the exact
same way and totally ignore it.”
But Tobin Stone, who says he created the meme, said the image was
in no way meant to evoke any Nazi elements.
“The eagle is not, and was never intended to be the Reichsadler,” he
said in a direct message on Twitter, referring to the “Imperial Eagle”
used by, among others, Nazi Germany. “It was just intended to be a
representation of America’s national bird, the bald eagle, and any
reasonable person should be able to interpret it as such. It was just
an eagle, and nothing more.”
Stone said he is a graduate of Albright College in Reading, Pa., in
political science and public policy and administration, but he makes
posters and does graphic design in his free time. He has created
several recent Dark Brandon memes.
“I’m a Democrat — and if we are being honest — the past year since
the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been pretty disheartening
for Democrats,” he wrote. “Up until this past month, where we’ve
been seeing win after win, from the gun bill, to declining gas prices,
and now the Inflation Reduction Act finally passing. It’s been great
to see so many wins, and celebrating them with these memes that
portray Biden as this powerful figure that made it all happen is just
good fun.”
AUGUST 8, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 8
White House ocials said they wanted to tap into the zeitgeist and
saw an opportunity to draw attention to the successes they had last
week.
Their base is less active on Twitter — and it was a point of pride
during Biden’s campaign that they avoided the policies and conver-
sations that may have been trending on social media — so White
House aides have been more selective about when to engage.
But they have also sought to turn perceived negatives around. When
Trump attempted to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden ahead
of the 2020 presidential election, they made the case to Democratic
primary voters that Trump was most afraid of facing Biden.
It is unclear, however, whether Biden knows about the new direc-
tion the memes about him have taken.
Jeremy Merrill contributed to this report.
WHITE HOUSE
B
iden is actually Greek. And Jewish.
And raised by Puerto Ricans.
e president oen uses identity to connect with crowds, most recently
in Puerto Rico. Sometimes it may be a stretch.
By Matt Viser
https://wapo.st/40Qx8hc
Click on the above URL or copy into your web browser to view online
KLMNO
Democracy Dies in Darkness
www.washingtonpost.com | October 5, 2022
President Biden, to hear him tell it, is as Greek as Poseidon. He was
brought up by both the Puerto Rican community and the Black
community. And he’s more Jewish than the Jews.
“I probably went to shul more than many of you did. You all think
I’m kidding,” Biden said to laughter last week during a ceremony
President Biden on Monday in Ponce. Puerto Rico, at a community
center aiding those battered by Hurricane Fiona. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty
Images)
OCTOBER 5, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 2
celebrating Rosh Hashanah, pointing at a rabbi from Wilmington,
Del. “He can tell you I’m not. I’m not.”
“I’m a practicing Catholic, but I’d go to services on Saturday and on
Sunday,” he added. Amid the laughter, he again armed: “You all
think I’m kidding. I’m not.”
And this week, speaking to a group of Puerto Ricans in the after-
math of Hurricane Fiona, Biden found kinship with a dierent
culture.
“I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politi-
cally,” he said.
Put Biden in front of a crowd, and he’ll try to connect with it —
even if, at times, the connection seems to stretch the available facts.
When delivering the commencement address for the U.S. Naval
Academy, he claimed to have almost attended the school. When he
spoke to a group of athletes in Israel, he suggested he came close to
trying out as a walk-on in the NFL.
The president tries to relate to local ocials with remarks about his
brief tenure as a county commissioner — 50 years ago — sometimes
with a tale about removing a dead animal from a constituent’s lawn.
(In one version, he carts it away in a pickup truck; in another, irri-
tated at her tone, he places it on her doorstep.)
Biden’s search for a connection also shows his approach to ethnic
politics, a skill that he needed for much of his career as he sought
to cater to small slices of an electorate in a small state. And it
reflects his role, once he graduated to the national stage, as a glad-
handing pol who has visited Little Italy in Cleveland, Chinatown in
Los Angeles and Little Havana in Miami.
OCTOBER 5, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 3
“I’m an honorary Greek — not only today but every day!” Biden said
in 2009 before quoting Aesop, the Greek fabulist and storyteller, at
a celebration of Greek Independence Day.
“We haven’t had a Greek in the White House, but now we have Joe
Bidenopoulos,” the then-vice president said on another occasion.
(As an April Fool’s joke last year, the Greek Reporter news site
wrote a story suggesting that researchers had traced Biden’s ances-
tors to a Greek man named Markos Bidenopoulos who fought in the
Greek War of Independence.)
While most of the mentions are innocuous, Biden has gotten in
trouble before for appropriating a British politician’s family story as
his own. During his 1988 presidential campaign, he slightly altered
lines Neil Kinnock delivered about his Welsh coal-mining ancestors
who would spend hours underground before coming up and playing
football.
Biden, who delivered those lines during a debate at the Iowa State
Fair, later said that he meant to credit Kinnock — but the episode
helped drive him out of the race.
During his latest presidential run, his ability to relate to voters —
particularly those grieving or suering from tragedy — was central
to his political strength, with voters often saying that amid ephem-
eral politics driven by tweets and memes, Biden’s humanizing con-
nections drew them to overlook some of his gaes or the attacks of
his rivals.
And there were plenty of those, particularly as he sought to connect
with Black voters, who made up a crucial portion of his coalition.
“I come out of a Black community, in terms of my support,” Biden
said in a November 2019 primary debate. “If you notice, I have more
OCTOBER 5, 2022 www.washingtonpost.com PAGE 4
people supporting me in the Black community that have announced
for me because they know me, they know who I am.”
Responding to criticism of that comment, he said a few months
later: “I’m not saying, ‘I am Black.’ But I want to tell you something
— I have spent my whole career with the Black community.”
Biden also often notes that he is a son of Pennsylvania (where he
was born) and also Delaware (where he moved at age 10).
“I grew up in a heavily Irish Catholic community in Scranton, Penn-
sylvania,” he said in 2020, “and a heavily Italian Polish community
in Claymont, Delaware.”
His favorite food is Italian pasta, and Jill Biden has deep Italian
roots as the country’s first Italian American first lady.
But he is few things more than Irish — an Irish Catholic with an
Irish temper, by his own account, who occasionally gets his Irish up
and ends up in a “black Irish” mood.
“We Irish are the only people who are nostalgic for the future,” he is
fond of saying.
But he also uses his Irishness to find a connection, and not only
with other Irish Americans.
“Whether it was my ancestors who boarded con ships in the
Irish sea in the famine in the 1840s or families who fled oppressive
regimes and natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean,”
he said in 2020 in Florida, “all of our ancestors, yours and mine,
they came equipped with only one thing — the only thing they had
in their pocket was hope.”