Even though he is no longer a candidate for re-election, President Biden insists that he is “not going anywhere,” and it is true that his lease on the White House has another six months, or roughly an eighth of his entire term.
But when his motorcade pulled into the White House gates on Tuesday for the first time since he withdrew from the race, Mr. Biden returned to a vastly different presidency. He is now that creature most dreaded in the Oval Office: a lame duck, a commander in chief on the way out who is being challenged to assert his relevance even as the world moves on.
Traditionally, it has been the most frustrating period of a president’s time in office. The spotlight turns toward potential successors; lawmakers would rather rush home to campaign than pass major legislation; and world leaders strategize over how to deal with the next administration while looking for ways to make introductions.
“Think how disappointed President Biden must be,” said Barbara A. Perry, the co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. He was forced “to drop out of a race he relished against his nemesis, seeing and feeling himself aging out of the profession to which he has dedicated his entire adult life, and knowing that whatever little power he had left in his term he has now utterly sacrificed by withdrawing from the 2024 contest.”
Like his predecessors, Mr. Biden has already vowed not to be shunted to the sidelines. In a post on social media on Tuesday shortly before returning from Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he spent six days recovering from Covid and recalibrating his future, the president said he would address the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday at 8 p.m. He said the address would discuss “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.”
He made clear in a phone call to his old campaign headquarters on Monday that he still harbors hope for progress. “I’ve got six months left of my presidency, and I’m determined to get as much done as I possibly can, both foreign policy and domestic policy,” he said, citing initiatives to curb gun violence, expand child care and elder care, lower the cost of prescription drugs and stem climate change.