A former adviser to President Biden compared life in the White House to dog years: Every day feels like a week, every year feels like seven. And then there are times like these when it can feel like that an entire term happens every few days.
The past few months have become a particularly stressful time at the White House. The president is heckled during his speeches and mocked because of his age. The Secretary of State has protesters camped in front of his house throw fake blood on his car. The Secretary of Defense is in and out of the hospital. The Secretary of Homeland Security I have just been indicted.
As if that were not enough, the director of the American Agency for International Development, a specialist in genocide, was confronted with its own employees, demanding that she resign due to US policy towards Israel. The president’s son will be tried on criminal charges. And the White House staff is grappling with two intractable wars, not to mention obstructionist Republicans, anxious Democrats and, oh yes, a re-election campaign that, judging by most polls, is currently not winning Mr. Biden – and the fate of the country hangs in the balance.
For some working in or around the West Wing, it can be difficult to catch your breath. The meetings are marked by occasional dark humor about the catastrophe lurking around the corner. The farewell celebrations in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building are, for those not leaving, reminders of the compromises of endless hours of politics, policy and disaster management.
Even for some officials with experience in multiple administrations, this period appeared to be one of the most intense ever, made all the more bristling by sharp internal disagreements over the president’s approach to Israel’s war and Hamas. Other officials shrug off the tension, recalling other pressure-filled moments, from when Mr. Biden’s campaign nearly collapsed after early primary debacles to the early months of an administration that has inherited from a deadly pandemic and a devastated economy.
“Yes, this is an extremely stressful time,” said Anita Dunn, senior adviser to the president, “but that is part and parcel of the moment. The White House has never had an easy time. This president has never had an easy time.
She added that Mr. Biden, who after more than half a century in politics has seen it all, sets the tone by remaining calm and steadfast through the storms. “He doesn’t panic, he doesn’t get into recriminations,” she said.
Some officials, in and out of this building, wish he would panic a little more, or at least demonstrate a little more sense of urgency, given the high stakes of the next eight months. No president wants to lose re-election, but this one, a fall contest with former President Donald J. Trump, has been touted as a choice that will determine the sustainability of American democracy.
White House official compares the road ahead for Mr. Biden’s team to the scene of “Top Gun: Maverick” when Tom Cruise must traverse a dangerous canyon into enemy territory at supersonic speeds, making every turn with pinpoint precision, risking crashing to his death.
“Look, the stakes for the country couldn’t be higher, and now her whole legacy is on the line,” said Michael LaRosa, former press secretary to Jill Biden, the first lady. “Fair or not, historians, the media, and Democrats will judge his entire accomplishments and career through the prism of whether Trump is defeated or whether the country will have to deal with the aftereffects of a another long national nightmare. The pressure is real and couldn’t be more intense on them, so I can’t imagine what it’s like out there right now.
Mr. LaRosa said Mr. Biden was the right person for the moment. “To hell with age, he should run again because he was the most important president in my lifetime,” he said.
But in private conversations in recent months, some within the administration have questioned whether Mr. Biden, 81, should run again, given his age and poll numbers, but would never say so officially .
Despite all the tension, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief of staff, makes a point of trying to raise morale. A initial investor in the Call Your Mother bagel store chain in Washington, Mr. Zients brings bagels to the office for his colleagues every Wednesday and holds regular meetings to foster camaraderie.
Last month, Mr. Zients, a millionaire, dug into his own pockets to rent the State Theater in Falls Church, Va., for a dance party for hundreds of White House officials, featuring music by DJ D- Nice, who played for free. Mr. Zients released a video highlighting the administration’s accomplishments in its first three years, including the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and various legislative achievements.
Aides pointed out that Mr Zients did not organize the party because he felt the staff had poor morale and that in fact he was known to have thrown parties in the past, including theme nights in the 1970s and 1980s. But several aides said it was an important time to vent amid tensions over legislative gridlock and wars in Europe and the Middle East.
“I’m very happy to be on the other side,” said Kate Bedingfield, a former White House communications director who left last year after many years serving Mr. Biden during his vice presidency. , his campaign and his presidency. “It’s exhausting, and eventually everyone finds their moment.”
Even in the best of times, she noted, the White House is a fatigue factory. “It’s long hours, you eat a lot of bad food, you don’t get a lot of sleep, you don’t spend a lot of time outside the building,” she noted.
Seeing his son Hunter Biden targeted by prosecutors, political opponents and the media also took a personal toll on the president.
“In many ways, he thrives in moments of increased pressure,” said Jen Psaki, Mr. Biden’s former press secretary, who draws comparison between the White House years and the dog years . But for the president, when it comes to attacks on his son, the stress is “more human than presidential,” Ms. Psaki said. “How do you define that as a father, and how does that fit in with everything else? »
Every presidency goes through periods of intense stress. The White House was particularly nervous when Bill Clinton was being investigated by and subsequently impeached independent counsel Kenneth Starr. The West Wing was even more of a pressure cooker when George W. Bush’s war in Iraq went bad and casualties mounted. Barack Obama’s team felt the weight of the world when it came to power on the brink of a global economic depression. And every day of Mr. Trump’s term has been combustible with an unstable president who encouraged infighting among his own advisers and fired them at will on Twitter.
Some Biden veterans said the most difficult moment for them was probably the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Others evoke the first weeks following the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 which left 1,200 dead in Israel. Younger staffers, in particular, believe Mr. Biden has not done enough to curb the Israeli military operation, which Gaza health authorities say has left nearly 30,000 dead.
But while some lower-level officials resigned in protest, his entourage remained relatively stable. Only one of the 15 statutory members of the initial cabinet has left (Martin J. Walsh as Secretary of Labor). Turnover among Mr. Biden’s top advisers has been about average, according to the Brookings Institution — well below during Mr. Trump’s chaotic tenure, a little lower than under Ronald Reagan or Mr. Clinton at this point, as under Mr. Obama and a little higher than under Mr. Bush or his father, George H.W. Bush.
Yet those currently working in Mr. Biden’s White House volunteered with their eyes open, and no one wants to appear ungrateful. “When you sign up for these jobs, you know you’re signing up for a stressful and thankless set of jobs, because only the hard things happen in the White House, and only the hardest things happen in the President’s office,” Ms. Dunn said. said.
Mr. Biden’s team has been encouraged by signs that not only is the economy strong heading into the election year, but also that Americans may be starting to notice it, at least judging by the growing consumer confidence. And the team was applauded as a central allegation in the House Republican impeachment inquiry targeting Mr. Biden and his son collapsed with the announcement that the accuser had been charged. responsible for inventing all this.
Ms Bedingfield said Mr Biden had assembled a team accustomed to pressure. “They’re level-headed, they’re very good at maintaining calm determination,” she said. “This is not a team that is easily shaken.”
The next eight months will test this.
