The White House has been silent for three weeks on how it plans to “recalibrate” the president’s activities, but Joe Biden’s new role as occasional campaign surrogate, shopkeeper and beachgoer is already evident in his activities.
Biden on Sunday offered his first detailed comments on what he sees as his role in the 2024 campaign now that he is no longer the candidate.
It appears to be an agenda with a limited political role that will keep him relatively close to home while Vice President Kamala Harris is tasked with jumping back and forth between different screaming crowds across the country.
Asked if people would see him campaigning during the sprint to the November election, Biden, 81, said in a new interview: “Yes, they will.”
He praised his role as an adviser to Harris, whose elected role has been to advise him. “I talk to her frequently,” he told CBS, adding that he has known his new running mate, Tim Walz, “for several decades” and considers him a “great guy.”
This comes after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described Biden’s involvement in Harris’s vice presidential selection process when asked directly by DailyMail.com if she gave him a recommendation.
“The vice president sought the president’s advice and, as you know, she certainly welcomed his advice,” he said, calling the two “crucial partners.”
The White House has asked for time to “recalibrate” President Biden’s role. He spoke of “organizing a campaign tour in Pennsylvania.” On Sunday, he rode a bike near the beach
“But she sought his advice. He offered it to her. She accepted the advice. And I’ll leave it at that,” he said.
Biden is also hinting at a “campaign tour” of Pennsylvania, a state he has tended to frequent and where he was trailing Donald Trump in swing-field polls before dropping out.
“I’ve been talking to Governor Shapiro, who is a friend. We have to win in Pennsylvania, my home state. He and I are organizing a campaign tour in Pennsylvania. I’m also going to campaign in other states and I’m going to do everything that Kamala thinks I can do to help the majority,” he said.
The Harris campaign has not yet announced that effort.
Biden spent a few hours at the beach on Saturday
Biden’s first event with Harris will be in Maryland, a heavily Democratic state bordering Washington, D.C. It is billed as an official event, not a campaign event.
The vice president wants Biden in “specific places where he has the most strength,” Politico reported last week. That includes older white voters in states he won. “It’s very hard to see Harris’ team wanting him on the campaign trail” after the party ousted him, a team member told the publication.
There are early signs that Harris’s team believes Biden can contribute by keeping a low profile and allowing her to build her own brand. Her approval rating rose 10 points in Pennsylvania compared with last month in a new New York Times/Siena poll. Her approval rating hit 51 percent among likely Pennsylvania voters in the survey.
In a separate Hill/Emerson poll in the state conducted in late July, Scranton-born Biden polled 37 percent.
Biden is reported to appear at the Democratic Convention in Chicago for just one day (the first) and then leave the stage to other Democratic luminaries. The Clintons, the Obamas and members of Harris’s circle will be the big draws at the event. It’s unclear what role he might play in the party’s fundraising efforts.
Biden repeated his refrain: “Look,” when asked about his health. “Look, I had a very, very bad day in that debate because I was sick. But I don’t have any serious problems,” he said in his interview.
One thing Biden shows no signs of giving up on is getting out of Washington for the weekend. On Thursday, he flew to his home state, thanked campaign staff, then headed to his beach house in Delaware.
His getaway included a bike ride and some time at the beach with his wife Jill and granddaughter Naomi.
It’s not all game for Biden, as the White House demonstrated last week when the president announced an elaborate prisoner swap with Russia involving multiple countries that brought Americans home.
Biden was joined by Harris as he welcomed them to Joint Base Andrews. The president continues to push for a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which, if achieved, could benefit Harris more than any campaign appearance. On Thursday, she signed a joint letter with the heads of state of Egypt and Qatar saying there was “no more time to waste.”
Asked about a possible attack on Israel by its allies, he issued a brief warning to Iran. “Don’t do it,” was his brief response to a question.
On his Sunday bike ride, he was asked about Gaza and Donald Trump’s claim that he was angry about being expelled. The president smiled and waved as he rode by.