With less than a month left of the Biden administration, congressional Democrats contend that history will ultimately be kind to the one-term president.
Forget any anger over waiting too long to drop out of the presidential race or dismay that his administration tried to brush off concerns he was too old to run. Forget that after repeatedly pledging he would not grant clemency to his son Hunter, he gave him a sweeping pardon. Forget, too, the news that his dismal approval rating just hit its lowest since taking office and his administration’s unpopularity dragged down Democrats in the House and Senate.
NOTUS spoke to over 20 House Democrats, who mostly gave glowing reflections on Joe Biden’s time in office. President-elect Donald Trump has taken center stage since the election — inserting himself into congressional negotiations and making state appearances overseas — while Biden has made himself scarce. But Biden’s allies on the Hill say he’ll be remembered for far more than just helping usher in a second Trump administration.
“He brought the country together,” Rep. Debbie Dingell argued to NOTUS. “The infrastructure money that he invested is fixing roads and getting internet to every family. Education, infrastructure, health care. He did a lot of good things.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat called Biden’s legacy “one of the best in the last, at least, 50 years.”
“Probably one of the most productive administrations ever,” Espaillat told NOTUS. “When I went to Egypt for COP27, that was a big hit. The Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, a bunch of pieces.”
And Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic majority leader who helped execute Biden’s legislative agenda in Congress, offered similar praise.
“He had some extraordinary domestic accomplishments,” he told NOTUS.
“He’s done a lot for this country. A lot of people know that,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland told NOTUS. “And when I think about the election results, this was not a mandate, right? [Republicans] barely won the House.”
Other Democrats argued that Biden’s legacy is much more complicated.
Yes, Biden is the president who signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law which capped insulin prices at $35 and advanced efforts to curb climate change. He also signed the CHIPS and Science Act which strengthened supply chains and boosted the U.S.’s competitiveness with China. Democrats also point to the 16 million jobs created while Biden was in office and the massive COVID-19 relief bill passed during the earliest days of the administration.
But a number of Democrats pointed to the war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues as a larger blemish on Biden’s record. As Rep. Yvette Clarke put it, Biden wasn’t “able to bring the hostages back in the Middle East.”
“This is the thing that sort of detracts from all that success,” she told NOTUS.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Biden is also leaving office mired in trust issues. His pardoning of his son Hunter for crimes spanning 11 years, despite pledging that he wouldn’t, left even his closest allies confused and furious.
Looming over all this is the incoming administration and a Republican governing trifecta.
Biden’s legacy, Rep. Ritchie Torres said, will be much like former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s: “mixed.”
“The best of his legacy includes the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lay the foundation for a clean energy transition, and the CHIPS Act, which is going to be instrumental in reindustrializing America,” Torres said. “But the worst of his legacy includes the election of Donald Trump. I do feel like the president’s mishandling of the migrant crisis contributed heavily toward Donald Trump’s win in November.”
Espaillat argued that it was the Democratic Party as a whole — and not Biden on his own — that should be held responsible for their losses.
“There’s always going to be Monday morning quarterbacking,” he said. “I think we all did a horrible job of messaging and highlighting the great work that he has done.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks told NOTUS he believes Biden’s reputation in the future will be repaired.
“History looks back and says something different,” he told NOTUS. “Just as, for example, after World War II, the U.K. threw out Churchill. They called him all kinds of names at that particular time. But looking back at what he did and what was actually accomplished, the historians later raved about it, and I think that’s what’s going to happen with Joe Biden.”
However, as much as Democrats cling to Biden’s accomplishments, Trump is eager to reverse them. Trump has vowed to undo Biden’s climate initiatives supported by the Inflation Reduction Act. He also wants to defund Planned Parenthood and revoke the temporary protected status granted to Haitian immigrants, among many other policy goals.
As things stand, Democrats can’t do much in a Republican governing trifecta except oppose Trump’s policies. Their best chances at regaining some power are in the 2026 midterms where they could flip the close House, but it’s unlikely power would shift back to Democrats in the Senate.
That fact is much more sobering to some Democrats like Rep. Becca Balint who told NOTUS that one has to look at Biden’s legacy “stone-cold sober.”
“We don’t have a gavel,” she said.
Reps. Seth Moulton and Dean Phillips, two Democrats who have been critical of Biden, had a different take: We told you so.
Moulton called Biden “a great president who made a few mistakes at the end of his term.”
“It certainly had a tumultuous couple of months,” he told NOTUS of Biden’s legacy.
Phillips was more expressive.
“A horrifyingly consequential decision to run again that, unfortunately, has tarnished what would have been quite a remarkable legacy of legislative accomplishments and stewardship and decency that the country really needs,” he told NOTUS.
Phillips also went as far as suggesting that Biden shouldn’t be the only person credited for passing landmark legislation and that congressional Democrats should be lauded as well.
“The executive is supposed to be executing the laws of land. We’re supposed to be making them. And the judicial branch, of course, is supposed to be litigating those. And it took a massive heavy lift of this institution to get that stuff done,” he said. “So if people are going to celebrate those bits of legislation, they should include the Congress that got it done.”
What does Rep. Jim Clyburn, the close Biden ally widely credited for his 2020 win, think Biden’s legacy is?
“I’m not going to talk about his legacy yet because he’s still got stuff to do,” he told NOTUS. “We’ll see what happens by Dec. 31, then I’ll be able to talk about his legacy in January. But right now, his legacy is not yet a legacy.”
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Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.