The FRONTLINE Interviews

Ron Klain

White House Chief of Staff

Ron Klain served as President Biden’s White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023, and previously served as Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president. Klain is now a Democratic political consultant and chief legal officer at Airbnb.

The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on April 3, 2024, prior to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. It has been edited for clarity and length.

This interview appears in:

Biden’s Decision

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Ron Klain

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Biden’s 1987 Run for President

So let's just start at the beginning, when you first meet Joe Biden—who he is, who you are.Who is he at that point?

I first met Joe Biden when he was a senator, back in 1986.He was getting ready to run for president in 1988.I had worked on a campaign in Massachusetts, and the chief consultant to that campaign, a guy named John Marttila, was also advising then-Sen.Biden, and he urged me to get involved in the Biden campaign.So I came to Washington, met with then-Sen.Biden, talked about his campaign for president and started to work on it in the summer of '86 right through when I left in the late spring/early summer of 1987.

And what was he like as a politician then?

He was what you see now, very outgoing.He loved people, loved campaigning, loved talking to people, hearing their stories, talking about their hopes and dreams and how he could try to help them achieve that.He was optimistic.He's always been optimistic about the country and about the role public service can play in making the country a better place.And he was obviously in a very crowded field in 1988, and he knew he would be a long shot, but he was excited to get into the race and get the campaign going.

And was it—I mean, he was young at the time.Was it audacious, the campaign?

I don't know if it was quite audacious.He was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.He was young but had been in the Senate for 14 years already in 1986, and I think was someone who widely was speculated would run.I don't think anyone was surprised when he got in the race in the summer of 1987.So I think it was a very mainstream candidacy.

We've heard stories that one of the nuns, when he was in school, said that when he was seven, he said he was going to be president, and he told his first wife almost on the first date that someday he would be senator and president.What is it about Joe Biden that you think made that part of him, that aspiration to that job from such an early age?

Well, I think he had loving parents who supported him and who let him believe that he could do whatever he set his mind to.He believed in the people he was serving in the state of Delaware and believed that their hopes and dreams were something he should defend in the Senate and public life.He believed in public service and believed he could make a contribution, always was confident about that and always willing to do the hard work to make it happen.

So I think that—was it a surprise when he ran for president?He was a great orator and a very powerful campaigner for other Democrats in the country.Many people urged him to run, and so he did run.

… What effect do you think it had on him, the end of the '87 campaign?Did he give up his hopes for being president for a while?

I don't think so.I think, as the president himself has said, it saved his life, because he was suffering severe headaches, and if he had still been running for president, he probably wouldn't have gotten the medical checkup he needed to diagnosis his aneurysms and to put him in emergency surgery.So maybe if he had been out on the campaign trail, he wouldn't have taken care of himself.So he did take care of himself, and he's been healthy and fit since then.

I think that he had never lost a campaign before that, so I think it taught him that you can do your best, and sometimes you still don't win.And I think it gave him exposure to people around the country.That helped build a lot of the network of supporters that he relied on in 2020 to help get elected president.

Biden Always Gets Back Up

The thing that's amazing about the Joe Biden story is how long it goes, from '87 to—

2020, yeah.

2007 there's a campaign, all the way—

Yeah, we had a 2008 campaign and all the way to the 2020 campaign.

—to 2020.And I know when you left the White House, you talked about being written off, and I think you were talking—I don't know if you were talking just about inside the White House or over Joe Biden's whole career.But what is it about Joe Biden that brings him back, let's say, in 2008?He considers running for president again, even after all he's been through.

Look, I think he's a person who's been knocked down a number of times in his life and always gets back up.That's what he believes for himself, for the country, for the people around him, that it's not—everyone's going to go through setbacks in life and that it's how you deal with those setbacks, and the—

You know, he had suffered the worst setback anyone could suffer, which was losing a wife and a child in 1972, after he won his first election. And he had to recover and build a new family after that and take care of his two boys, who were injured in that crash, and ultimately got married again and had a daughter.He's been through terrible setbacks in his life, and wonderful triumphs.

I think he has that quality of internal resolve, to deal with adversity, get back up and get going again.And that's what he did in the 2008 campaign.

Does he say that?Does he say, “This isn’t that bad.This is just politics.It's not as bad as other—”?

I've never heard him say that, but I definitely feel that way—you definitely feel that way when you're around him.I always felt when I was White House chief of staff that whatever I was going to walk into the Oval Office and tell him wasn't going to be the worst news he had ever heard in his life.And the president would often say, “We shouldn't get too high when things are going well, and don't get too low when things are going poorly.” So I think he has a real-life perspective given the things he's been through in his life, and of course more recently in his life, the loss of his older son, Beau [Biden].So he's seen terrible tragedies.He's obviously been elected the president of the United States, a tremendous triumph, and he knows that the highs are often temporary, and the lows are something people have to deal with.

I guess people sometimes call it the “Irishness of life.” Is that how he sees it?

Yeah.He definitely sees it that way, and I think it's one thing he brings to the job as president.When he has to deal with people who have suffered grave losses and natural disasters or other kinds of tragedies, mass shootings, and he goes and meets with the families, and they know he's suffered loss, it makes him a great consoler and helps him help people work through these terrible times, having been through them himself.

Biden as Vice President

Do you think or do you know if it was hard for him to make the decision to accept the vice presidential ticket, eventually the vice presidency, after he had been—run his own office, been a senator who could say whatever he wanted?Was that difficult for him?

I don't know about difficult.He gave it a lot of thought, and it wasn't an automatic thing.He didn't just immediately say, “Yes, I want to be vice president.” He liked President [Barack] Obama.They had worked together in the Senate.Had a great deal of respect for him.And he knew that President Obama was going to make history as the first Black president.And I think he wanted to make a contribution to that and try to help him win in 2008, and then help him be a successful president, as he was.

And so I think if it had been anyone else, any other time, he might well have said no.He loved being a senator.He enjoyed the work of the Senate.He enjoyed his work on the Judiciary Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate and wasn't looking for kind of just a step up.He only wanted to be part of an administration where he thought he could make a difference, where he thought he could make history, and the chance President Obama gave him to join the ticket was that opportunity.

You were there in that first part, where he has to navigate this situation, which is the first African American president.He's the vice president who has a lot of experience in foreign policy and other things.Did he have to pay attention to, “I don't want to come off as a [former Vice President] Dick Cheney”?

No, I think he was very clear all along that there was no doubt in his mind who was president.Barack Obama was president.He had run; he had won.And he was there to help make President Obama the best president President Obama could be: give him advice, be supportive, be loyal.He understood his role, and I don't think there were any issues with that at all.

At the time, there was the talk about, you know, were there eye rolls?Were the younger staff members disrespectful towards him?Is that real?Was that part of the White House?

I don't remember it so much.I think a lot of people involved in the Obama campaign had the view, rightfully, that he had come on as a long shot.He had beaten Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, then-Sen.Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, a lot of other party luminaries, and therefore he had earned the presidency and had proven himself to be a very special individual, with special skills and special appeal to the American people.

And so I think there was a halo around that.And President—now-President Biden, then-Vice President Biden, respected that very much.I don't think there were any issues there.

During those years, did you see the relationship change between the two of them?

Yeah, the relationship definitely grew.I mean, they knew each other.President Biden knew then-Sen.Obama well, but they got to know each other with a new closeness over the eight years of being together day after day, going through crises together, their families getting to know each other, and the two families becoming very close.So I think their relationship did grow in depth and in warmth over those eight years, no question about it.

I don't think you're at the White House at the end of it, when he's dealing with Beau and sort of the family tragedy, but do you have insight into how he dealt with that as he was vice president and as he was a father?

Yeah.Look, I think it was obviously excruciatingly hard, because to lose a child is a pain no parent should have to bear.And he loved Beau so much and respected his leadership and courage and his integrity.So it was very, very hard on him.

I would talk to him pretty frequently as Beau was getting sick and then shortly after Beau died, and it was very hard on him personally.President Obama was a great source of comfort and strength, offering the now-president whatever help he needed and being there for him as a friend.And I think it was just a very, very hard time for Joe Biden, no question about it.

And then at the same time, there's that question of, is he going to run again?How does he face a decision like that?

Well, I think many people around him wanted him to run, and he thought about it hard.He ran a process on it.I looked at him and believed that he wasn't really kind of personally in a place where he should run because he was still grieving so deeply and couldn't really focus on the campaign the way he would need to.So it wasn't a surprise to me, ultimately, that he decided not to run and continued to focus on taking care of his family, taking care of—helping to take care of Beau's children and bringing his family—heal[ing] his family after this horrible tragedy.

Biden’s 2020 Run for President

In that period after that, what brings him back to it?I mean, we're talking about being written off, right?I think when he gave that Rose Garden announcement that he wasn't going to run again, let me ask you—actually, let me ask you about that.

I will say this.I think he never had an intention to run for president again until the events of 2017 changed his mind and made him believe that he had to get back into elected politics to, as he likes to say, restore the soul of the country.And so I think when he said he wasn't going to run for president in 2016, I think he thought he was closing the door for good.But then we had the events of Charlottesville, [Virginia,] and President [Donald] Trump's reaction to it, and Joe Biden was so outraged by that, he said, “I'm going to run and defeat this man.” So I think that really led him to start to think about a campaign in 2020.

And when he was—throughout that campaign, there are a lot of moments where it seems like he's out; he's still out.Help me understand that and about how he manages to put it together.

So we had a very tough outcome in Iowa, where we finished fifth place in Iowa.People said his campaign was dead.He said we were going to fight on.We went on to New Hampshire and finished fourth there, which was better but not that great, and then onto Nevada, where we finished second, which was an improvement but not where we needed to be.The president believed he would do—always believed he would do well in South Carolina.He believed he had a special tie with Black voters.He was very hopeful of getting Congressman [Jim] Clyburn's support there as well, and he said, “I'm not going to drop—however this goes, I'm going to keep going.But I want the voters of South Carolina to speak.Black voters are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, and I'm not going to let three states where there are very few Black voters decide the nomination.I'm going to fight on and make sure they have their voice in this process.”

Some of the language from that campaign—the “soul of the nation,” the convention speech where he talks about light and dark—people have told us it's not the traditional language of Joe Biden, the politician, over his time.It's a sort of almost religious, a more dramatic language.Was that coming from Joe Biden?Was that language that was coming from a speechwriter?

Yeah, I think that's how he saw where we were as a country at that time.I wouldn't say religious, but he saw it as democracy being at stake.As he said frequently in the campaign, the soul of the country is at stake.What kind of country are we going to be?Are we going to be a country of hatred and division, or a country where we try to come together and solve problems?And he thought President Trump was putting us on one course, and he was absolutely determined to try to wrench the country back to another course.So it came from his heart, came from his gut.It's what he believed.It was what drew him back to elected politics and why he thought the 2020 campaign was so important.

Biden Wins the 2020 Race

… Can you help me understand the moment where the kid who, when he was seven said that he wanted to be president, finally realizes—andyou can tell me where that is, because it might not be election night—when he realizes that he has won the presidency.

Well, I think on election night, we felt pretty good about things, but it wasn't done.All the votes weren't counted, so we knew we'd have to be patient.It wasn't until the Saturday after Election Day when finally there was enough votes tabulated in all the key states to make it clear he had won those states, when the major news organizations projected him as the winner.

And at that moment, I think what that moment was about was really starting to plan for the presidency.I mean, he was taking over at a time—one of the darkest winters in American history.Thousands of Americans were dying every single day from COVID.We had people unemployed.A lot of the economy shut down.Schools shut; people in long lines at food banks, waiting for a box of food.And so he was very focused on not celebrating his victory but on preparing for his presidency and making sure we were putting in place the plans we needed to get Americans vaccinated, to reduce the death toll from COVID, to get the country back open, to get people back to work, get schools back open, get the country back moving forward, and more than just moving forward, moving ahead.

You know, we were facing a moment of racial reconciliation after the summer of George Floyd, and the president was very focused on what he could do to accelerate that, and to get us back and fighting climate change and the crisis we faced there.So he had a big to-do list, and we got to work right away that Saturday on, OK, what are the first steps we need to take?

Just because this could be useful to us, a little bit of color of the moment.Are you with him on that Saturday, and what is the mood, or do you say anything to him?

I was.I was with him at his house in Wilmington, [Delaware,] and the first call he made after he was declared president, he called Dr. [Anthony]Fauci to ask about what we could do to accelerate our fight against COVID, how we could use science and the vaccine to accelerate it.They set a goal that day of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his presidency.At that point in time, virtually no one in the country had been vaccinated, so it was an audacious goal.And if we could do that, we thought we could reduce the death toll dramatically, as we did, and begin to reopen the economy and schools, as we did.And so he talked to Fauci that first day and then summoned Jeff Zients, who is now the White House chief of staff but then was the director of the transition, over to his house, start to plan out what were the decisions that needed to be made, the key personnel decisions, the key policy decisions.

And he summoned together his economic advisers that day by teleconference to talk about building the plan, what became the American Rescue Plan, the plan to get the economy going again and to put money in people's pockets and to get things going for businesses, small businesses, and to really help us get out of the depression we were in.And so he got to work that day from his kitchen table in Wilmington, worrying about the public health crisis, the economic crisis we faced, and building a new administration.

What about all the stuff that's going on during that transition from the outside, which is the [then-]current president of the United States saying he won the election, aiming his supporterstowards Jan. 6?As you are watching that, as he is watching that, what are you doing?What is he doing?

Well, so he was getting regular updates from his legal team about the various cases Trump filed, more than 60 of them, all of which he lost, and working with congressional leaders to make sure there would be an orderly transition.Of course, we got very little help from the Trump White House on that, and ultimately President Trump led the insurrection on Jan.6.But even before that, there was very little help in the transition process.

So he [Biden] was doing his job of getting ready to be president and making sure everybody else was doing their job of facilitating the transition of power.

And Jan.6, candidate Biden had been warning about threats to democracy, and had been warning—And here is this moment, which I don't know if even he could have imagined what would happen on Jan.6.What was the reaction to that?

On Jan.6, the president was in Wilmington, then-president-elect was in Wilmington.He was supposed to give a speech on small business, getting small business going again.And I was working from the transition headquarters we had in Wilmington, and I called him and said, “Hey, look, this is not the right time for the speech.” He was like, “Well, if President Trump is not going to address the country and put an end to this, I'm going to address the country.” And so we worked out some remarks, and he went to a venue in Wilmington and spoke to the country that day and made it clear that there's no place for political violence in our society; that the insurrectionists needed to leave the Capitol and allow the transition of power to continue.And he spoke to congressional leaders that day in both parties and talked to them about the need to get the vote counting back on and to make sure we honored our constitutional tradition in this country of a peaceful transition of power.

One of the things that's hard in covering President Biden is in a moment like that, what is his emotional reaction?I mean, is he angry?How does he react to something like that?

He wasn't angry.He was concerned.He was worried about the people in the Capitol not getting hurt or injured.He was worried about our democracy and our Constitution.And he was very focused on his job.I'm not going to say he wasn't emotional, but he was first and foremost in action mode, making sure he was doing what he could to call on Trump and others to end the violence and making sure that the Congress was ready to resume the counting of votes, which had been disrupted.

President Biden

As you're arriving, now in the middle of COVID, now in the wake of Jan.6, let me start with your personal arrival to the White House and what it's like and who was there to greet you or not.

So it's interesting.I had spoken several times during the transition to Mark Meadows, the outgoing chief of staff, and we had never gotten together.And then right after Jan.6, we stopped talking, obviously.And then he had called me a couple days before the inauguration and said, “Hey, Ron, we never met.This is all over now.Why don't you come to the White House a couple hours before the inauguration?You and I will meet, and then you’ll just stay.At 12:00 noon, he'll become president, and you'll become the chief of staff.So you’ll get here at 10:00, meet me at 10:00, we'll talk for a while, and then you can just stay, and the office will be yours at noon.” So I showed up at the White House at 10:00 and went into the West Wing, went upstairs, from the West basement up to the chief of staff office.The doors were locked.There was nobody there.And while I was standing there, a young woman came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Are you Ron Klain?” I said, “Yes, I am.” She said, “Well, Chief of Staff Meadows is on the phone for you in the Situation Room.”

So I went down to the Situation Room, got on the phone.It was Mark, and he said, “Look, I got tied up.The outgoing president left later than I expected.I was with him.I'm late.Just stay put, and I'll come over and see you.” So I waited.And eventually Mark showed up, let me into the office.We had a very brief conversation.He was cordial.He asked me if I had been briefed on certain things.I told him I had.He said, “Well, I guess that's it then.” He got up.He left.He said he had a pardon that President Trump had signed in the final hours of his presidency, wanted to get it to the Justice Department before 12:00 noon.I wished him well.He left, went on his way.I never talked to him again.And I went down to the Situation Room, and we monitored the inauguration to make sure it wasn't going to be subject to a violent disruption, as Jan.6 had been.

It's amazing.I assume you never delivered things to the Justice Department for the president—

No, I did not.

—as part of your job.

No.

… You talked about what it was like arriving in the middle of the financial crisis.But this crisis, all of these multiple crises that you're facing, just help me understand what you're facing on day one.

So standing up a new White House is always hard in the best of circumstances.This was far from the best of circumstances.People weren't vaccinated, so we had to be careful.Some people worked remotely.People in-person were masked, and we tried to distance and tried to be careful and tried not to spread the disease so that people weren't sick, people could be on the job.So we had a lot of protocols in place in early January until we could get people vaccinated in February and March.

So it was hard.It was hard to assemble the team, hard to get everyone coordinated.But we did our best and had a lot of success early on.I think that we were very aware of the crises the country faced.We were very aware of the need to take a vaccine, which I'll give the Trump administration credit for—had developed, but had no plan to distribute.So we had millions of doses of vaccine and no plan to get it into people's arms, so we had to build a plan very quickly to get people actually vaccinated and then to order more vaccine, because they hadn't ordered enough of it.So to order enough of it, get it produced, get it distributed, that was our first focus, because we knew unless we did that, you couldn't get schools open; you couldn't get businesses open; you couldn't get the economy going again; you couldn't get people back to work.

And then we—the president, during the transition, had announced his economic rescue plan.He announced it a few days before he took office, and on the day he took office we got to work on working with the Congress to try to get it passed as quickly as possible.

What did it feel like?Because when I read about it, the cascading crises—there's a new [COVID] variant; there's a supply-chain crisis; there's things constantly happening—what is that year like?

It felt like there was something new every day, a new problem.We'd solve one problem, something else would happen.And, you know, it's part of working in the White House at all times, but it seemed particularly acute then.The president urged us to keep our heads down, keep focused, move ahead, keep tackling these problems.He had gotten elected to fix these problems, so the fact that we had more than we had bargained for was just part of the deal, I guess, and we just had to keep working on them.So he was very about the business of governing.

Was it frustrating?Was there a feeling—because I've read that there was—a feeling of not getting credit?You'd fix the supply-chain stuff, but the next problem, that it was—

I don't know about not getting credit.I think there was a hope that if we had solved these problems, other things would get better, and it just wasn't enough.And so we went through the initial vaccination challenge; then the new Delta variant brought the disease back.We needed to get new boosters made.And at the same time, the economy got going again, but prices started to go up, so we needed to fight inflation.We obviously—the president courageously ended the longest war in American history, but then we needed to airlift people out of Kabul.It was very complicated and hard.And so we had just a series of problems and challenges all year long.We had cyberattacks.We had to find ways to deter the Russians from doing it.We ultimately got that done.We stopped the cyberattacks, but for a while, the Colonial Pipeline, which provides most of the oil to the East Coast of the United States was shut down for a few days.We had to deal with how we would truck fuel all around until the pipeline could be reopened.So we had an endless series of challenges, and we tackled each challenge one at a time.

The Withdrawal from Afghanistan

You mentioned Afghanistan, which was one of the big crises in that first year.What led to the problems with the images that we see of the cargo plane taking off? And was a ball dropped?

Look, I think that whenever you end a 20-year war, it's going to be difficult on the exit.And the president had been told that the Afghan civilian government would be able to maintain control, and then, very quickly, regional capitals began to fall to the Taliban.The Taliban moved on Kabul faster than anyone had predicted, and so they reached Kabul faster than predicted.The president was still being told that the Afghan army would defend—had defended these regional capitals.The Afghan army would defend Kabul.America had been there for 20 years.We had spent almost a trillion dollars.Countless Americans had given their lives to train the Afghan army.So it was their country, their army, and they completely failed and collapsed and turned over Kabul without a shot.

So we still had—we had, obviously, some Americans in Afghanistan, but even more people who had helped the Americans over the years who had to be evacuated from the country, with no support from the Afghan army, because they were gone.And so we had to take control of the Kabul airport, the Hamid Karzai Airport, and maintain a secure perimeter there.And so the president had ordered, a couple days before, sending troops back to Kabul to secure the airport, and they were arriving.And it took them a while to get control of the airport, because the airport had been run by the Afghan army. The Afghan army was gone.Now there was no one in charge.It was just chaos there.

So I think they established control relatively quickly, and they were able to do something that people predicted—That day, when Kabul fell, people said, “Oh, you'll never be able to get people out of there.” We got … one of the largest airlifts in human history — 120,000 people safely rescued from Kabul.And that was a tremendous work of our armed forces, State Department, and the various people who were there processing visas, getting people on those planes and getting them out of the country.

What was it like at the White House during that time?What was it like for President Biden, who had said it wouldn't look like Vietnam, and then—

It was obviously a very tough time, because he was very worried that he had ordered thousands of Americans to go back into Kabul to rescue the people who were there, and he was very conscious of his responsibility as commander-in-chief, would constantly ask the commanders on the ground — on video chats and in the Situation Room — the senior leaders of the military, “What more do these people need to be safe?What do we need to do?” And he was aware that when we had evacuated people from Vietnam, planes had been shot down; hundreds of people had died.So he knew it was risky business.

And we were in the Situation Room almost 24/7 for those two weeks during the evacuation, and trying to make sure that our troops on the ground had what they needed and trying to make sure that the flow of resources and people were effective.And in the end, we suffered a tragic loss of 13 members of our armed forces in a terrorist attack near the end of the evacuation.The losses could have been much worse.Overall the military did a very good job of protecting our people there, and our pilots did an excellent job of getting the planes out before the terrorists could shoot the planes down.

But reading about the president going to be with the families as the bodies are coming back, the president who knows—who had a son in the military, who lost his son.And then some of the families are angry at him.It sounds like one of the most difficult moments of the presidency.Is that true?

I think the day we lost those service people in Afghanistan was the most difficult day.I think going to meet the families was a very difficult day, no question about it.The president knew what it was like to lose a loved one, lose a child who had served in the military.And he understood the families' anger and frustration, and he was just there to try to give them some comfort and express the gratitude of the country for their family's service.But he understood that people were angry and frustrated and hurt, and so he was there.It was a tough moment, but he saw it as part of his duty and thought it was the right thing to do.

Biden’s Handling of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

There certainly are a lot of crises, and the next big foreign policy crisis was [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and Ukraine.Was there a moment where you realized this is really happening, this invasion?

Sure.I think in the run-up to the invasion, the president had been the person who believed it was going to happen.A lot of experts said, “No, Putin will never do this. It's too crazy.”And as the intelligence came in, we saw the Russian troops moving towards the Ukrainian border, saw the Russians moving supply, materiel towards the border, the president told his team, “Look, I know Putin; he's going to do this.We need to get the Ukrainians ready.” And at first, the Ukrainians were very nervous about that, because they thought preparing might provoke Putin. And the president told President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, “No, you need to prepare, because this is going to happen.”

And then one evening, Gen.[Mark] Milley and other leaders were at the White House.He told the president, “Look, we have reason to believe that this invasion is coming tonight our time.” And so we waited for reports.There were reports the Russians were moving across the border, and we encouraged the Ukrainians to take defensive positions and to make sure that President Zelenskyy was safe.And then that evening, President Biden talked to President Zelenskyy.The initial military read of it—we might not have contact with him, because we thought the Russians would jam all communications. For whatever reason, they couldn't or didn't, and so the president was able to talk to President Zelenskyy that night, reassure him that we were sending ammunition and supplies and that NATO would do what it could to help the Ukrainians resist Russian aggression.

President Biden, when he was vice president, had been to Ukraine a lot.He also had the whole—his whole experience in the Senate, in foreign affairs.How did that come to play in the response to the invasion?

It came to play in a couple of ways.One, I think it's why he believed, when others doubted, that the invasion was going to happen.He believed it was going to happen and made sure we were preparing, pre-positioning for military supplies in Europe that we could send onto the Ukrainians, getting ready for it to come.It's, I think, led to his skill in organizing and assembling the coalition, NATO and dealing with the European allies, making sure they were prepared.People said when Putin launched the attack, it would splinter NATO, and NATO wouldn't have the courage to stand up to it.Joe Biden played a big role in talking to European leaders and saying why we had to stand tough and why they had to resist Putin, why we needed harsh sanctions that hurt economies around the world, but hurt Putin especially, and why they would have to accept those sanctions, why they would have to impose those sanctions on Russia.

And so his experience, his relationship with the leaders, his experience in global affairs, I think, made him the critical leader for the West at this critical moment, where Putin tested the West.Instead of turning NATO on Finland, in the end, Finland became part of NATO.So it worked out exactly backwards from what Putin planned, and I think a lot of that’s because of the president's leadership in assembling the coalition and then leading the coalition to confront Putin.

The decision on the president's part, I believe, to frame it in terms of not just a battle in Ukraine and Russia, but a battle of democracy versus autocracy, tell me about why—was it coming from him, that framing, and why?

I think it came from him.It was definitely coming from him.I think why he chose that frame is that's how he saw it, that it wasn't just—it was bad enough that Russia was trying to invade Ukraine, but if Russia could take over a democracy in Ukraine, why would it stop?It might go on, further and further west, and that more likely would lead to World War III.And obviously he saw a very different kind of challenge, big challenge from President Xi [Jinping] in China, as they were hardening up their government and getting more and more authoritarian and threatening military action against Taiwan.

So I think the president saw that we were in a worldwide battle between democracies and autocracies and wanted to make it clear this wasn't just a U.S.thing.It was a broader thing that all democracies shared.They all needed to come together.They needed the democracies of Asia to come together to help us check the Chinese threat.We needed the democracies of Europe to come together to check Putin's threat.And I think that's how he saw it —I think that's a very intelligent way of seeing it — and cast this fight at the level it needs to be cast at.

He also compares it to Charlottesville, right, the invasion.He sees a domestic connection with what's going on?

Well, I don't know about a connection.I think there's a parallel, though, there about whether or not certain kinds of autocratic extremism are going to prevail in democracies now, and I think that there is a parallelism, not a connection, but a parallelism between the two.

And so there's no question that President Biden feels like he's fighting for democracy here at home and around the world, and he is—And that's an important fight, and all Americans, no matter your partisan view, should share that fight with him.

He also—around that time is the anniversary of Jan. 6—and he gives a speech.And some people have said that before that he was talking about the “former president,” almost trying to ignore Donald Trump.Is that true?Does the continuation of Trump and Trump's control over the Republican Party come into focus as you get into the second year?

I think that President Biden was well aware of what President Trump was doing and what he was saying, but he was focused on doing his job, which was leading the country and bringing it together.I think as we got to the anniversary of Jan.6, he believed that that denial of Jan.6—remember that Trump called the people who stormed the Capitol “patriots”—risked doing even more damage to our democracy, and he needed to speak up and speak directly to it.So he went to the Capitol that day and spoke directly to it, powerfully. And I think that's been part of his ongoing work, to stand for democracy, and challenge and summon all Americans to stand up for democracy.

Is this the theme of his presidency?I've read that he says, “Yeah, I want”—like in the midterms—“I want this.This is central to the campaign,” and other people are saying, “It shouldn't be about this.” I mean, is this the central theme of Joe Biden's presidency?

It’s certainly a central theme, and perhaps the most—certainly the most historically significant theme.His presidency has also been about getting us past the public health crisis, fixing the economy, fighting climate change, working on race relations.He has many, several key themes.But I think that history will look back on this as a critical period where our democracy was tested.President Biden prevailed in 2020, made sure he preserved our democratic norms and democratic system.And I think 2024 frames the same choice for voters.

Biden’s Legislative Success

How important a part of that was the legislation, the multiple legislative steps?How important was it?Was it part of a theory? "If we can show we can legislate and govern—?"

Look, I think it's important on its own accord.I think that it was important as a country to restore infrastructure as part of our economy and our overall strength in the world.It's important to restore our supply chains of computer chips, which are vital to the coming years ahead, and to tackle climate change by building a clean energy economy.I think all these things are important things in their own right.

But I also think the president ran—and he said, when he ran in 2020, “Look, I believe I can get things passed in Congress.” A lot of people were skeptical.They said, “Oh, no, you can't.Congress is too broken.You're old-fashioned.It doesn't work that way anymore.” He was determined to show that our system could work, could produce results for people.That was a key priority of his, and we delivered on that the first two years.

How hard was it?

Super hard.Every day was hard.Harder than hard.You know, generally, new presidents pass things by relying on a supermajority in their party and just voting things through.We had a 50/50 margin in the Senate—couldn't be closer—and a five- or six-seat margin in the House—couldn't be closer.So we had to keep all our Democrats together, and then on some things, we had to bring Republicans along.

And it was very, very difficult.The president worked on it night and day, talked to people in both parties, rallying our party and reaching out to Republicans, meeting with them at length in the Oval Office, trying to pull together the votes we needed to pass these important pieces of legislation.

I mean, you're talking about being written off, and there's many, many, many examples along the way, where it seems like—

Yeah, we're dead.

It seems like it's dead.Tell me about that and about how you respond, how the president responds.

Well, so I think that he just stuck with it.We always said, “Let's just stick with it.Keep working on it.If in the end we can't pass it, we can't pass it.But let's just keep at it, keep at it, keep at it.” And he was willing to compromise, willing to meet people where they were, but never gave up.And I think that persistence allowed all the rest of us to be persistent in helping him.And in the end, we got the things done we said we would get done, and so I think—not everything, but a lot of the things.Some things we couldn't get passed.We couldn't pass voting rights reform, which we very much wanted to pass.We couldn't pass abortion rights protection, which we very much wanted to pass.But we passed the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors] bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and got a record number of federal judges confirmed.So we were able to deliver on some key priorities, and it was just persistence and endless reaching out and trying and trying and trying.

… Was it frustrating to see the polls, the approval ratings, the stories every day?Did it frustrate you, and did it frustrate him?Did you guys have different reactions to something like that?

I would say there were days when it frustrated him some days, frustrated me some days.But whenever it was frustrating, the president said, “Hey, let's just stick with the work.Let's not worry about the day to day.Let's really focus on the work.Let's get these bills passed.Let's do what we have to do to get them passed and ignore the day-to-day ups and downs.” So that's what we did.We put aside the barking in the press and just got the work done.

Was it hard for you to leave?I read, I think, in [Chris] Whipple’s book, that maybe even nine months in, you were wondering how long you were going to be there.Was it hard at the end to make that decision?

Well, I had stayed longer than any first chief of staff for any Democratic president ever, so I felt like I was there for a very long time.I had been there with other chiefs of staff, and I knew how grinding the job was, and so the fact that I lasted as long as I did was a surprise on the upside.By the time we got through the midterms—I decided to stay through the midterms, because people said we were going to have a bad midterms; I thought we were going to have a good midterm.But if we had a bad midterm, I wanted to be there to take the blame for it.We had a good midterm.It was tempting to stay.But I had gained a lot of weight; my health wasn't that good, and I needed more time to take care of myself, and more importantly, my mother was gravely ill.In the month of January, before I left, I was working at the White House six days a week and then getting up Sunday morning, flying to Indiana to see her, and flying back late Sunday night to be back to work Monday morning.It was just, the schedule was impossible to keep, and so I told the president in late January/early February that I had to leave to go back to Indiana to see my mom and be with her.

It was very tough to leave.I love the president; I love the team we had.A lot of those people have been friends for decades, colleagues for decades.And I was very proud of what we did, proud of the team we had, proud of what we were doing, but it was just the right decision for me and my family.

So what's the role of the family for President Biden, for—I mean, his sister [Valerie] has been there since the first campaign.What is the role of the family?

Well, the president is very family-oriented.He likes his family around him for big events, for holidays, for birthdays, for whatever.And that's his—that's who he likes to spend time with when he has free time.He's very, very family-oriented.

Is Val still involved in the politics of it, or Jill?

Valerie still is an important adviser to the president on his campaigns, and an energetic spirit and force; avid spokesperson on behalf of the president and his campaign.And I think one thing that's changed over the years is Jill has gotten much more involved in politics.When I first went to work for Joe Biden in 1986, she didn't like politics that much; she didn't like to be involved in the campaign.Now she's a very enthusiastic and energetic first lady.She's the first first lady in history to hold a full-time job, while being first lady.She works a full-time job and does her duties as first lady, and now also goes out and campaigns for her husband, and she's very enthusiastic about the campaign.

She's a bigger part of it now than she used to be back in the olden days.And the president just generally likes to have his family around.The decision to run in 2020 was a decision he took in consultation with his children, his grandchildren, made sure everyone was onboard, because he knows there's a price families pay in politics.And he draws a lot of energy and strength from his family.

Biden’s Age

… Was there ever a question of whether he would run again?Because there was on the outside.

I never heard the president express doubt about it.But I think after the midterms, when we did so well, and there seemed to be—and his political judgment had paid off, and we had a strong number of Democrats in the House and Senate, I think that reinforced his decision that he should run again.And then I think once it was clear that Donald Trump was going to run again, he was not going to step aside and let Trump march back into the White House.So I think he thought he was the right leader for our party.He is the right leader for our party, and the right person to defeat Donald Trump a second time.

And the questions about his age, what did you see?How does he see it?

So I think he's certainly aware he's old.It's just an indisputable fact.I can tell you, I spent an hour with him yesterday.He is mentally sharp.He is focused on the business of the presidency and on the challenge of the campaign.He wouldn't run if he didn't think he could do the job, and he wouldn't run if he didn't think he could beat Trump.And he believes both those things.I think the people who know him best believe those things.And I am confident that he is in good shape physically and mentally to win in the 2024 campaign and serve successfully for four more years after that.

The [special counsel Robert] Hur report, when that comes out, and he comes out to speak, he seems sort of angry about it, and angry about the questions about his son's death.Does it affect him personally, those questions?

I don't know if it will affect him personally.I think he felt that it was unfair and political, not prosecutorial, to drag his son into it and to malign the president's memory of his son, which I can tell you, the president knows when his son died.It's very well etched in his mind and heart.And so I think he saw it as a political attack by a political prosecutor, and a personal attack, and he wanted to respond to that.

I think he did take it personally, because, as I said, the president knows, he keeps his cool, and he keeps focused on the job, and he keeps focused on moving ahead.

The State of the Union, the stakes for that seemed to be pretty high in the wake of that moment.Can you help me understand President Biden at a moment like that, what he's like going into it, how he prepares for it, and what you see as you watch that?

Yeah.The president works very hard to prepare for the State of the Union.He's done it each year.It starts off with a long process to figure out what new ideas and proposals he could put forward in the State of the Union, talking to members of the Cabinet and his policy advisers and members of the House and Senate to get ideas, and his own ideas.And then he’ll process it to the White House to make sure the ideas are sensible, that we can put them into the budget, have a way to pay for them, so on and so forth.So a lot of times, a lot of that work happens in the months before the State of the Union.

And then he'll start to draft an outline of the points he wants to make, work with his speechwriters on how to flesh those points out.And sometimes that change goes up to the last minute.I remember the year before, the invasion of Ukraine had been just before the State of the Union, and we rewrote the State of the Union at the last minute to start the thing off with the discussion of Ukraine, which, when we started the process, wasn't at the top of the State of the Union, that's for sure.

So he's constantly updating and changing it till the moment he gives it, and then he welcomes the chance to go out and speak to the American people directly, speak energetically, forcefully, about what he stands for, confront those who have different goals and objectives, make it clear he's going to defend Social Security, defend Medicare, deal with any heckling, whatever he has to deal with.But he sees this as a golden opportunity to say what he's for, say what he's going to do, say what he's fighting for and why he wants to be president and continue to be president.

Because the biography, it starts with the little kid who has a stutter, and he has to practice in front of a mirror.Is that still part of his preparation, that he's going to be super-prepared for something like that and know exactly what he's going to say?

Well, he does hand-mark up his drafts with key pauses to help his cadence.He's overcome his stutter.But I think he knows at these key moments — he wants to express himself the way he wants to express himself —he knows a lot of people are watching.Wants to be rhetorically effective, so he does spend time going over his speeches to make sure they maximize their points, that he lands the points the way he wants to, and that they reflect his point of view, and do it in a way that's hopefully as persuasive as possible.

And when you saw that speech, with all of the questions going into it, what was your reaction as you watched it?

I was happy for him.I wasn't surprised.The president has delivered great States of the Union before.He always rises to the moment.I knew he would rise to the moment that night.So I wasn't surprised by his strong performance, but I was happy to see it just the same.

How Biden Views the Stakes

… How does he view the stakes for this election this year?

Well, he's said that democracy is at stake in the election.I agree with him.I think that the stakes couldn't be any higher.Donald Trump has said if he becomes president again, he'll be “a dictator on day one,” and we've never had a president run on a promise to be a dictator.So I think he sees the stakes as, this is very, very profound.He understands a lot of things he's accomplished these four years will be undone if Trump takes office again, and a lot of the effort he's done to shore up democracy will be reversed if Donald Trump takes office again.

Trump has said he'll let Putin run wild in Europe.“He can do whatever the hell he wants,” is what Trump has said.Democracy is at stake here at home and around the world in this election.

Ron, give us a sense of, on Inauguration Day, what does it feel like?What was that like?Take us there.What was it for him?What was it for you and all the people who have been with him through all the heartache and the grind and the crazy scariness that you were facing?Give us a sense—can you narrate the day for us?What was it like?

So Inauguration Day began with a lot of anxiety about whether or not it would be peaceful.We had taken steps to secure the Capitol area and secure the inauguration route.As 12:00 noon approached, we were mostly just monitoring those steps, to make sure they had been effective, that there were no threats to anyone's safety and to the transition.

And then when 12:00 noon came, the president raised his hand on the Bible and swore the oath of office, there was, I would say, first of all, a sense of relief that we got through it and got through it successfully.I was in the Situation Room at the White House; I wasn't up there celebrating, unfortunately.It wasn't what I had envisioned when we had won, but that's where I was, doing my job.And then we were at the White House.The team at the White House started to get ready for the president's arrival, because the president then gets sworn in, there's a luncheon in the Capitol, and then there's a parade that takes a couple hours for him to actually get to the White House.

So it wasn't until about 3:00 or 4:00 when he finally arrived at the White House and saw the quarters and kind of got settled and came down to the Oval Office probably around 4:30 to 5:00.We had 20 things for him to sign that day.And so it's the first time as a White House staff you're doing these things.I made sure we had the right things in the right order for him to sign: send the immigration bill to Capitol Hill, to sign executive orders on the first day returning America to the Paris Climate Accords, launching our effort to promote the vaccine, all the things we had set up for day one.Had a big agenda that day.Came down to the Oval Office.We went through these things one by one.He signed them all.We then released them to the public.And that night, I think, was the first time I really felt celebratory about the whole thing.

You've known him for so long.When you could see him, his face, sitting at that desk, signing those things, president of the United States, what was it like for you, and what was it like for him?

Well, I can't speak for him.I can tell you what it was like for me.I first—I was in the Oval Office, waiting for him, as I said, getting all this work ready for him.And he came down from the residence on the West Colonnade with his sister and his brother, and they walked down the West Colonnade toward the Oval Office.And I remember looking at him and saying, “This is just—this is an incredible thing to see after all this time, that he is coming into the Oval Office as president of the United States.” So I felt a lot of excitement and a lot of anxiety about the fact that we were going to now start to do a lot of work.It was late in the day, and we had a lot to get done before the end of the day.So I was just very focused on—I was happy to see him coming into the Oval Office, but very focused on the work we had to do that day to deliver.

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