President Biden offered a frank assessment of the former president’s character on Wednesday, telling the hosts of ABC’s “The View” that former President Donald J. Trump “isn’t worth having back.” Asked if he would have won the presidential race had he stayed, Biden responded, “Yes. I was confident I could beat Trump. He’s a loser.”
But in a statement that was part personal, part policy and part political, Biden said he was “comfortable” with his decision not to run again. He also gave a glowing endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, saying, “She’s very smart, number one,” adding, “She’s tough, she’s got integrity, and what I like about her and what we have in common is that we’re both optimistic about the future.”
This will be Biden’s 10th appearance on “The View” and the first time a sitting president has appeared live on the show. He first appeared on the show in 2007, when he was a senator. In 2010, Barack Obama became the first sitting president to appear on the show for a pre-recorded interview.
The president’s answering of questions from six hosts of “The View” was one in a series of farewell events for Biden in New York. On Tuesday, Biden delivered his fourth and final address to the United Nations General Assembly. On Wednesday night, the president and first lady Jill Biden hosted a reception for world leaders at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In his remarks at the Met, as well as at the UN on Tuesday, Biden recounted the arc of his 50-year political career, from his mother’s advice — “Joey, remember never bow your head, never give in, never give up, never give up” — to his stand on the Tibetan plateau with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“He asked me, ‘Can you explain to me what America is?'” Biden recalled. “I said, ‘Yes,’ in one word. ‘Possibility. Possibility. We believe anything is possible.'”
So while Biden said on “The View” he believes Middle East peace is still possible, he also acknowledged that “all-out war is possible.” But he also issued a sharp warning about what U.S. foreign policy would look like if Trump were elected for a second term, saying Trump “doesn’t understand the value of partners, the value of alliances, the value of bringing the world together.”
Biden tried to frame his decision to step down in a positive light, saying he had intended to be a “transition president” when he first took office, but that it took “more than usual” to pass the baton because he had been “so successful in accomplishing things that people didn’t think were possible,” so he decided to stay on.
Trump maintained he has a good relationship with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who played a key role in pushing Biden out of the race, and said he has “never fully bought the assertion that there was overwhelming resistance” from Democrats to take on Trump, and argued his polling has “always put me in a position to beat Biden.”
He also made his usual jokes about age, looking at host Alyssa Farrah Griffin and saying, “I know you’re only 30, but it’s hard to think about. It’s hard for me to even tell how old I am. No, I’m serious. I’m telling you, my God, this just doesn’t happen, this just doesn’t happen… There are no women that I know that are my age. None of them,” before fellow host Whoopi Goldberg chimed in: “And so are we all right now!”
Later, during a commercial break, an ABC employee pointed out a 95-year-old woman in the audience, to which Biden gave a thumbs up and said he would like to meet her.
Biden received a warm welcome from the hosts, most enthusiastically from Whoopi Goldberg, who said she didn’t like the way Democrats were treating him and likened Trump to a “bug” that buzzes around and won’t go away.
“I’m going to say it out loud because no one else is going to say it out loud,” she said. “I didn’t like the way it was being handled in public.”
“You were with me till the day I die,” she told Biden, adding, “I just want to thank you, but thank you for everything you’ve done in my life.”
