“She sees herself as a wife and a mom and a nana. And what wife, mom and Nana wouldn’t defend their family?” one senior Biden adviser said. “She is going to defend her family and take issues with attacks on her family. But she has been in politics a long time. And so they’re well aware that nasty attacks have come in the past and they’ll come now and they’ll come in the future.”
And at a time when suburban women are drifting toward Democrats and the nation’s schools have become political battlefields, the White House sees utility in having a prominent educator standing beside her husband. The issue of “book banning” featured prominently in Biden’s reelection launch video.
“She can reach suburban women, in particular, in a way that really resonates with them. She is really effective in talking about how the Biden agenda is good for moms, for women, for working women,” former White House communications director and 2020 deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said. “I think she brings a credibility that comes from having kept her job as a teacher, even as they came into the White House, both when he was V.P. and now.”
Aides expect the first lady to keep up an intense travel schedule — she already boasts the most travel among the four White House principals — but her responsibilities on the reelection trail won’t just be public facing. Instead, she’ll serve as a confidant for her husband as he tries to defy naysayers who fear he is too old and too much of a political relic.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
His Morning Routine: Exercise With a Side of Morning Joe!
Aides say the president isn’t a religious viewer of any particular cable news show. But if there’s one he watches with regularity, it’s Morning Joe. Unlike Trump, who started tweeting before most of Washington awoke, Biden typically isn’t watching that first 6 a.m. hour — or rage-tweeting about Mika — but he will often tune in while riding his exercise bike around 7 a.m. And we’re told he’s occasionally in touch with some of the hosts and has, at times, conveyed positive feedback about what they’ve said. For instance, he let Joe Scarborough know that he enjoyed his description of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) as “having rocks in his head.”
There’s a Tiny TV in the Oval Office
When people step into the Oval Office, they might notice the five presidential portraits hung over the fireplace or the grandeur of the historic Resolute Desk — but not the little television. That’s the point. The TV monitor sits behind Biden on another desk topped with picture frames, encased in a golden frame itself so as to be inconspicuous. But when there aren’t press cameras or dignitaries in there, the 10 or 12” screen is often turned on — and tuned to CNN. While Biden isn’t spending hours in his private dining room glued to a big screen as his predecessor was, several current and former White House officials told me that the president will keep an eye on his secret screen behind his desk and react to coverage during less formal meetings with staff. Televisions outside the Oval and aboard Air Force One are also almost always on CNN during the day, not “the quad,” the four-box available in the building to staffers who want to keep an eye on all of the main cable networks simultaneously.
He Calls People He Sees on TV
The way to ingratiate yourself with Trump was simple: just say nice things about him on TV. Biden is not as insecure — and easily won over — as his predecessor, but he has been known at times to pick up the phone to personally thank people articulating helpful messages on television, be they hosts (Al Sharpton has gotten such calls) or panelists. Last summer, as Democrats’ big spending package was languishing in Congress, Biden called Jim Messina after seeing him on MSNBC defending the administration’s agenda. According to people familiar with these calls, Biden will often solicit feedback or advice from the journalists and politicos he dials up.
And He Has His Favorites
It’s safe to say Biden isn’t up late in the Lincoln bedroom chatting with Sean Hannity after his show. The president’s closest relationships with members of the media are with his contemporaries, the reporters and commentators he’s been reading and interacting with since his years in the Senate. The group includes Times columnists David Brooks and Thomas L. Friedman, both of whom have had audiences with Biden at times, and Mike Barnicle, the Morning Joe regular and longtime columnist. He has also maintained a relationship with the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos, who turned a lengthy interview with Biden during his campaign’s early, quarantined basement days into a book. He has occasionally talked foreign policy with Friedman, who got to know Biden when he was a senator on a 10-day trip to the Middle East. Earlier this year, Friedman even succeeded in getting Biden to issue him a short statement — on a Saturday! — about pro-democracy demonstrations in Israel, which he used in a column. “This is the first time I can recall a U.S. president has ever weighed in on an internal Israeli debate about the very character of the country’s democracy,” he wrote.
He Is a Print Guy
Biden has the same push alerts on his cell phone we all do, but he is a traditionalist when it comes to newspapers. When he took office in 2021, he asked aides to make sure the print editions of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal were available to him in the White House residence and the West Wing, according to several administration officials. The papers are delivered very early in the morning to the executive residence staff and the West Wing, the officials said. No one has yet seen him autographing news clippings with a Sharpie and sending them to pals.
He Reads His Own Clips (Like Everyone Else in Washington)
Every White House compiles daily clips for the president and top aides. But we’re told Biden is particularly interested in the localnews people across the country are reading. When he flies home after an event, staffers aboard Air Force One print out stories by local outlets that covered his appearances for him to read on the plane. And every day inside the West Wing, the staff secretary’s office puts together a binder of national and local news clips and front pages, including from Black, Latino and AAPI-focused outlets. Aides who have spent time around the president also said that he’ll often note an article referenced during a cable news segment and ask a staffer to print it out for him. When he was vice president, his clips also included news stories from Delaware, and we’re told he still keeps tabs on local happenings.
But He Doesn’t Love the Coverage
In his occasional comments to reporters, Biden has betrayed a frustration with the media’s coverage of him writ large, complaining that “you guys” probably won’t cover what cause or topic he’s eager to talk about at that moment. (In several instances, he has refused to respond to shouted questions on topics unrelated to the event at which he’s speaking.) Aides, concerned in part about the president’s ability to hear shouted questions beneath the whir of Marine One’s rotor blades, have tried to limit situations where the president is confronted — and perhaps enticed to engage — by a horde of shouting reporters. Unlike many of his predecessors, Biden has cultivated few relationships with reporters through off the record meetings and conversations. And the only time he has visited the press cabin aboard Air Force One, something Trump did with regularity, his off-the-record comments included complaints about his coverage. He has rarely griped publicly about any specific report, but some have gotten under his skin — including a story last summer by the New York Times’ Peter Baker about his age becoming “an uncomfortable issue,” multiple people around the president confirmed.
While the president has affirmed the importance of the press’ independence and its role in a democracy — (you’ll hear no “enemies of the people” rants from him) — he often grumbles privately that news coverage is too focused on his predecessor and other fleeting controversies and believes that the media has failed to focus on the historic nature and real world impact of his legislative accomplishments. He also complains to staffers, especially those who oversee communications, not enough people defend him on cable television, something those plotting his likely reelection campaign are hoping to remedy with a more robust surrogate operation.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
When the U.S. president on Tuesday announced that he would seek reelection in 2024, attention quickly turned to his advanced age.
If elected, Joe Biden would be 82 on inauguration day in 2025, and 86 on leaving the White House in January 2029.
POLITICO took a look around the globe and back through history to meet some other elected world leaders who continued well into their octogenarian years, at a time when most people have settled for their dressing gown and slippers, some light gardening, and complaining about young people.
Here are seven of the oldest — and yes, they’re all men.
Paul Biya
President of Cameroon Paul Biya | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The world’s oldest serving leader, Cameroon’s president has been in power since 1982, winning his (latest) reelection at the age of 85 with a North Korea-esque 71.28 percent of the vote.
Spanning more than four decades and seven consecutive terms — in 2008, a constitutional reform lifted term limits — Biya’s largely undisputed reign has not come without controversy.
His opponents have regularly accused him of election fraud, claiming he successfully built a state apparatus designed to keep him in power.
Notorious for his lavish trips to a plush palace on the banks of Lake Geneva, which he’s visited more than 50 times, Biya keeps stretching the limits of retirement. Although he has not formally announced a bid for the next presidential elections in 2025, his party has called on him to run again in spite of his declining health.
Last February, celebrations were organized throughout the country for the president’s 90th birthday. According to the government, young people spontaneously came out on the streets to show their love for Biya.
Konrad Adenauer
Former Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer | Keystone/Getty Images
West Germany’s iconic first chancellor was elected for his inaugural term at the tender age of 73, but competed and won a third and final term at the age of 85.
In his 14-year chancellorship (1949-1963), Adenauer shaped Germany’s postwar years with a strong focus on integrating the young democracy into the West. Big milestones such as the integration of Germany into the European Economic Community and joining the NATO alliance just a few years after World War II happened under his leadership.
If his nickname “der Alte” (“the old man”) is one day bestowed upon Biden, the U.S. president would share it with a true friend of America.
Ali Khamenei
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | AFP via Getty Images
84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last word on all strategic issues in Iran, and his rule has been marked by murderous brutality against opponents.
That violence has only escalated in recent years, with mass arrests and the imposition of the death penalty against those protesting his dictatorial rule. A mere middle-ranking cleric in the 1980s, few expected Khamenei to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, and he took the top job in hurried, constitutionally dubious circumstances in 1989.
A pipe-smoker and player of the tar, a traditional stringed instrument, he was president during the attritional Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and survived a bomb attack against him in 1981 that crippled his arm.
Thankfully for Khamenei, he doesn’t have the stress of facing elections to wear him down.
Robert Mugabe
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe | Michael Nagle/Getty Images
You’ve heard the saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” — well, here’s a classic case study.
Robert Mugabe’s political career reached soaring heights before crashing to depressing lows, during his nearly four decades ruling over Zimbabwe. He came to power as a champion of the anti-colonial struggle, but his rule descended into authoritarianism — while he oversaw the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and society.
Though Mugabe’s final election win was marred by allegations of vote-rigging and intimidation, the longtime leader chalked up a thumping, landslide victory in 2013, aged 89.
He was finally, permanently, removed as leader well into his nineties, during a coup d’etat in 2017. He died two years later.
Giorgio Napolitano
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano | Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
The former Italian president took his largely symbolic role to new heights when, aged 86, he successfully steered the country through a perilous transition of power in 2011 — closing that particular chapter of Silvio Berlusconi’s story.
Operating mostly behind the scenes, Napolitano saw five PMs come and go during his eight-and-a-half years in office, at a time when Italian politics were rife with instability (but hey, what’s new?).
Reelected against his will in 2013 at 87 — he had wanted to step down, but gave in after a visit from party leaders desperate to put Italy’s political landscape back on an even keel — Napolitano won the nickname “Re Giorgio” (King George) for his statesmanship.
When he resigned two years later, he said: “Here [in the presidential palace], it’s all very beautiful, but it’s a bit like jail. At home, I’ll be ok, I can go out for a walk.”
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“It has been a very good day,” Javier Solana, the then European Union foreign policy chief, exclaimed when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005.
As a tireless advocate of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abbas has enjoyed strong backing from the international community.
But three EU policy chiefs later and with lasting peace no closer, Abbas is still in power, despite most polls showing that Palestinians want him to step aside.
His solution for political survival: No presidential elections have been held in the Palestinian Territories since that historic ballot in 2005, with the Palestinian leadership blaming either Israel or the prospect of rising Hamas influence for the postponement of elections.
While Abbas seems to have found a solution for political survival, the physical survival of the 87-year-old chain smoker is now being called into question.
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Queen Victoria reportedly described Gladstone as a “half-mad firebrand” — and you’d have to be to chase a fourth term as prime minister aged 82.
At that point Gladstone had already outlived Britain’s life expectancy at the time by decades.
During his career, Gladstone expanded the vote for men — but failed to pass a system of home rule in Ireland, and he was slammed for alleged inaction to help British soldiers who were slaughtered in the Siege of Khartoum.
Gladstone was Britain’s oldest-ever prime minister when he eventually stepped down at 84 — and no one has beaten that record since. Similarly, no one has served more than his four (nonconsecutive) terms.
But should the Tories remain addicted to chaos, who’d bet against Boris Johnson starting his fifth stint as PM in 2049?
Ali Walker and Christian Oliver contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
There’s an almost obsessive preoccupation with Biden’s age. And in his video, Biden sought to portray himself as an ageless champion who will “battle for the soul of America” by taking on conservatives who are banning books, making it more difficult to vote and meddling in women’s health care decisions.
This campaign, though, will be far different than the socially distanced one he successfully navigated in 2020 with few public appearances during the height of the pandemic.
There’s a perceived dearth of enthusiasm for his campaign, with many Democratic activists resigned to the fact Biden is their best chance to stop Republicans from reclaiming the presidency. And the reality for Biden is many activists — natural surrogates to bolster his message — are growing weary. Many see themselves as loyal foot soldiers in the fight against culture war battles being waged in conservative legislatures which are pushing for stricter laws targeting abortion and voting.
Many don’t view Biden himself as a galvanizing force in 2024.
“It’s not going to be him energizing the base,” Cliff Albright, executive director of Black Voters Matter Fund, told The Recast newsletter with a hint of a chuckle.
“It’s obviously going to have to be surrogates to do the energizing part, but he’s got some achievements, including some that influence Black folks directly that he can craft a message around.”
Albright says the relaunch video was strong and that he was glad to see Biden lean so heavily into voting rights, an issue he says he is key for Black voters — even though Democrats were unsuccessful in enacting federal protections when the party held a governing trifecta.
“Sometimes all Black folks want to see is, ‘We want to see you fight,’” Albright says. “We’re not naive. We’re used to being in fights we know we can’t win because we don’t have the votes … but we want people to fight for us.”
Many Democratic strategists and activists give the Biden administration high marks for stabilizing the economy following the pandemic shutdowns, passing bipartisan infrastructure legislation and nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.
Those, they say, are achievements Biden should be touting.
They also hope the Biden administration can craft a coherent campaign message, one that showcases his achievements but also serves as a clarion call for the battles ahead that still require a united front of elected officials and activists to achieve. Keeping the activist class engaged and energized is key, but there’s also a hard truth being spoken amongst grassroots organizers.
“I think what you’re seeing is that we’re burnt out,” says longtime Democratic political strategist and activist Nina Smith, who worked on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign last cycle.
“There are a lot of folks right now that are just tired and they’ve stepped away. Folks that I worked alongside with in 2020 have stepped away and they are not as engaged anymore.”
“That’s the real danger here,” she adds.
Activists note that if the Biden campaign invests in and engages community organizers early on, this early fatigue can be overcome.
Many also say that Biden should rely on a new class of elected officials, including freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Tennessee state Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, to help elevate his campaign to a weary progressive base.
The “two Justins” as they are sometimes referred to, are both young Black men who were each expelled from the GOP-led Tennessee Legislature, before being reinstated the following week.
Together with state Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white and survived an expulsion vote, they form the “Tennessee Three.” On Monday, they met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to push the administration to declare gun violence a public health emergency.
Still, activists on the left may be looking past Biden, who will be 82 years old should he be sworn in for another term. Instead, they say, they are inspired by the woman who is leading his campaign: Julie Chávez Rodríguez. She’s a senior White House adviser and the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, famed labor leader and Chicano icon.
Not everyone agrees it’s enough.
“That alone is not going to be something that is going to [bring] Latino voters out for President Biden,” says Mayra López-Zuniga, a political strategist with the progressive group Mijente. “I think we need a little bit more substance.”
As she sees it, many Latino voters don’t feel their lives have changed for the better during the Biden administration. Huge wage gaps persist between Latinas and non-Hispanic men. By one measure from the Justice for Women report, Latinas make 54 cents for every dollar a white man makes.
Then there’s immigration, which was not mentioned in the president’s campaign video relaunch and is seen as a potential liability for Biden heading into 2024.
“The president hasn’t been able to deliver on immigration, no asylum reform, DACA is still up in the air,” López-Zuniga tells The Recast. “So I don’t know, at this point, that there’s a huge energy for what 2024 is going to look like.”
While Biden and his advisors seek to project the image of a spry commander in chief, questions about his vitality will hover over his reelection prospects — as are concerns that voters just aren’t that into him. The latest datapoint underscoring that came in an NBC News poll released Sunday.
It found a whopping 70 percent of Americans say Biden should not run — including 51 percent of Democrats. That is compared to just 26 percent who said he should run. Of those who said he shouldn’t run, a combined 69 percent cited his age as a reason.
Still: A lot can happen in a campaign over the course of 18 months. If anyone knows this, it’s Biden himself.
This article first appeared in an edition of The Recast newsletter.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: US Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday urged Americans to come together to fight for democracy, continue to make progress, and make sure all Americans can get ahead and thrive, minutes after President Joe Biden announced his 2024 reelection bid and named her as his running mate.
“This is a pivotal moment in our history,” said Harris, who is the first woman and the first Indian American and first African American to be the vice president of the US.
President Biden on Tuesday formally announced his 2024 reelection bid with Harris as his running mate.
“For two years we have made transformational investments to build a nation in which everyone can be safe and healthy, find a good job, and retire with dignity. In response, extremists have intensified attacks on basic, foundational freedoms and rights,” Harris said in a statement soon after Biden in a video message announced his 2024 presidential bid.
“For example, they want to take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. They attack the sacred right to vote and attempt to silence the voice of the people. And they try to block common sense reforms to save lives and keep Americans safe from gun violence,” the 58-year-old democrat said.
“The Republicans running for President want to take our country backwards. We will not let that happen. Just like we did in 2020, we must come together to fight for our democracy, continue to make progress, and make sure all Americans can get ahead and thrive,” she said.
“Joe and I look forward to finishing the job, winning this battle for the soul of the nation, and serving the American people for four more years in the White House,” Harris said.
Meanwhile, eminent Indian-American Ajay Jain Bhutoria said that President Biden and Vice President Harris have demonstrated that they are committed to building a more equitable and prosperous America.
California-based Bhutoria said their leadership has been instrumental in helping millions of Americans during the pandemic, and their vision for the future is inspiring.
In a statement, Bhutoria also highlighted the importance of unity and a broad-based coalition to secure a victory in 2024. He called upon his fellow community leaders and grassroots organisers to rally behind the Biden-Harris campaign and build a diverse coalition that reflects the values of all Americans.
“We need leadership that is committed to bringing people together and creating a more just and prosperous future for all Americans,” said Bhutoria, who has been a long-time supporter of Biden and a major fundraiser for his campaign.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris have the experience, vision, and values that are needed to continue to move our country forward, and I am proud to support their re-election campaign,” he said.
Praising the Biden-Harris administration for its bold leadership, Bhutoria said this has resulted in significant accomplishments, such as the passage of the American Rescue Plan and the historic infrastructure package.
A longtime Democratic aide, she’s currently the highest ranking Latina in the White House. She also served in several roles in the Obama administration, and is the granddaughter of labor icon Cesar Chávez.
Quentin Fulks, Principal Deputy Campaign Manager
A democratic strategist, Fulks was most recently the campaign manager for Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection campaign last year — the first successful reelection bid for a Democratic senator in Georgia in more than 30 years. Before that, he was the deputy campaign manager and senior political adviser to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, helping flip the seat blue in 2018. He has also held several positions at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, EMILY‘s List and Priorities USA.
Kevin Muñoz, Media Relations
Most recently an assistant White House press secretary, Muñoz will take care of press for the reelection bid initially as a larger team is built out. None of the other hires on the comms team or their potential roles in the campaign have been set in stone, two people familiar with the process said. At least one other campaign staffer is set to be announced soon.
National Co-chairs
Rep. Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-Del.) has been close with Biden for years, helping him choose his running mate for the last campaign. A long-time family friend, she’s also the first woman and first African American to represent Delaware in Congress.
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), another longtime ally, threw his support behind Biden in 2020. That gave the president a stamp of approval among Black voters at at a critical time for the campaign, following a string of losses to Sen. Bernie Sanders and coming just days before the state’s primary.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) has served as the “bridge” between the Hill, the White House and foreign capitals during the Biden presidency. Abroad, he has served almost as a proxy to Biden, being talked about in the U.S. and internationally as a shadow secretary of State.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran and the first Thai American woman in Congress, was floated as a vice presidential candidate in 2020. Since then, she has been a Biden ally, but also challenged the president two years ago for not naming Asian American Cabinet secretaries, vowing to oppose nominees on the floor before backing down.
Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has been a staunch defender of the administration’s handling of the southern border crisis, an issue that’s likely to be central in the 2024 presidential campaign. One of the first two Latinas to represent Texas in the House of Representatives, she represents El Paso, the largest city at the U.S. border.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, a film producer and major Democratic fundraiser, has been key to Biden’s presidential endeavors, backing him in 2020 and raising millions of dollars for Dems alongside the president.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was also floated as a potential vice presidential candidate, has been a close Biden ally for years. She vocally backed the president despite dwindling Democratic enthusiasm earlier this year, and endorsed him for president in 2020.
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Dublin: Visiting US President Joe Biden said he will run for the presidency again, the Irish national radio and television broadcaster RTE reported.
Before departing from Ireland at midnight Friday, Biden on Saturday told reporters that he has made up his mind to run for a second term and will make a formal campaign announcement soon.
The US President arrived in Dublin for a three-day official visit on Wednesday. During his visit, Biden met with his Irish counterpart Michael D. Higgins and held talks with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Xinhua news agency reported.
Former US President Donald Trump, a Republican, who lost to Biden in the 2020 election but has refused to concede, announced his bid in November for presidency in the 2024 election.
BELFAST — He came, he saw … and he got the hell out as fast as he could.
But Joe Biden’s brief visit to Northern Ireland across Tuesday night and Wednesday — 18 hours total, about half of them in bed — featured none of the gaffes that have previously blotted his diplomatic copybook. (That would change, however, after he headed south to the Republic of Ireland a few hours later.)
Indeed, the U.S. president successfully navigated Northern Ireland’s famously choppy political waters, avoided throwing a spotlight on the failure of its unity government — and even revealed an often-hidden and more hopeful reality: Off-camera, these supposedly warring politicians actually get on well.
Wednesday’s gathering at Ulster University in Belfast brought Northern Ireland’s opposing political leaders — including the key figure blocking the revival of power-sharing, Democratic Unionist chief Jeffrey Donaldson — side by side at last, along with a selfie-shooting Biden.
The president carefully avoided confronting Donaldson directly about his party’s yearlong blockade of the Northern Ireland Assembly, while dangling the prospect of billions of dollars of U.S. business investment if powersharing is restored.
And instead of extolling his famous Irish Catholic roots, Biden’s speech noted the English and Protestant elements of his family tree, and the disproportionate contribution of Ulster Scots immigrants to the foundation of the United States.
“The family ties, the pride, those Ulster Scots immigrants who helped found and build my country, they run very deep,” Biden told the audience.
“Men born in Ulster were among those who signed the Declaration of Independence in the United States, pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for freedom’s cause … Your history is our history.”
If Biden had punches to throw in the Democratic Unionists’ direction, he pulled them.
Speaking to POLITICO, a visibly relieved Donaldson said afterward that he’d appreciated the president’s “measured and balanced remarks” — and distanced himself from his unionist colleagues’ pointed criticisms of Biden as a poodle to Irish nationalism and even the outlawed IRA.
He also rebuffed a claim by his predecessor as DUP leader, Arlene Foster, that Biden “hates the United Kingdom,” stating: “The United Kingdom and the United States have a strong alliance and we want to build on that.”
Donaldson added that he had been reassured by the president during a brief backstage conversation “that he respects the integrity of Northern Ireland, that he respects our ability to restore the [power-sharing] institutions on the basis that we respect what the Belfast Agreement said — that Northern Ireland remains an integral part of the United Kingdom, and there should be no barrier to trade within the United Kingdom.”
The backdrop to the speech had been one of surprising unity, with unionists and Irish nationalists chatting amicably in the audience against background music of soft jazz.
Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy — the Irish republican party’s finance minister in the five-party government that collapsed in October because of DUP obstruction — laughed heartily alongside former Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt as the two discussed the ins and outs of power-sharing.
“The parties do work well together when they get the opportunity,” Murphy told POLITICO afterward.
He noted that Biden’s speech diplomatically avoided assigning blame for the Stormont impasse and focused on making a better Northern Ireland for today’s Ulster University students, who are too young to remember the three decades of bloodshed that ended following paramilitary cease-fires in the mid-1990s.
But Murphy added: “Biden’s pitch is about the future. The DUP don’t get that. If they think they somehow got off the hook here because they didn’t get a slap from an American president. Well, the rest of this society’s moving on with or without them.”
US President Joe Biden delivers a speech at the Windsor Bar in Dundalk, Ireland | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Most of those present agreed that, even though some leaders had wanted Biden to visit the Stormont parliament building overlooking Belfast, the president’s decision not to do so meant their failure to form a new government hadn’t become the central image of the visit.
“Of course it’s a missed opportunity. We don’t have an assembly and an executive,” said Naomi Long, leader of the center-ground Alliance Party and justice minister in the failed government.
“But to have gone to Stormont today when it isn’t operating would have been farcical,” she said.
The assembly’s caretaker speaker, Alex Maskey, also from Sinn Féin, agreed that in hindsight, Biden was probably right to have declined his own invitation to visit what is essentially Ground Zero of Northern Ireland’s political dysfunction.
“It ran the risk of underlining the problem,” Maskey said. “It’s just as well he didn’t go there because you’d be spending the next two or three days trying to repair negative media.”
While Biden strikingly spent less than a day in Belfast before crossing the border to spend the rest of the week touring the Republic of Ireland, he left behind his new envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy III, who will spend the next 10 days building business and political contacts across the U.K. region.
Kennedy, making his first trip here, chatted and joked with DUP politicians, particularly Emma Little-Pengelly, a close Donaldson ally and former special adviser to previous party leaders Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson.
They discussed tourist highlights of Northern Ireland’s glorious Giant’s Causeway coast and the best ice cream parlors in its resort towns. (Kennedy made a note of Little-Pengelly’s favorite: Morelli’s of Portstewart.)
Kennedy insisted Biden hadn’t needed to spend too much time in Belfast talking to local leaders this week — because he’d just had all of them, including Donaldson, as guests to the White House for St. Patrick’s Day.
His own mission, Kennedy added, “is not about the United States government coming in to tell the people of Northern Ireland what they need to do.”
“They’ve got a vision of what that future can be,” he said. “We can support them.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
