--- title: Biden Isn't Making Things Easy for His Potential Successors description: Joe Biden gets that deputizing a problematic portfolio is smart politics. canonical: https://time.com/6117132/biden-potential-successors/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-11-12T19:41:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:16:46.157Z article:section: Politics og:title: Biden Isn't Making Things Easy for His Potential Successors og:description: Joe Biden gets that deputizing a problematic portfolio is smart politics. og:url: https://time.com/6117132/biden-potential-successors/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf97e8abc9ca7b341/698a1ed4b21a9c321950558b/GettyImages-1347928208.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Biden Attends Ceremony For 10th Anniversary Of MLK Jr. Memorial og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Biden Isn't Making Things Easy for His Potential Successors twitter:description: Joe Biden gets that deputizing a problematic portfolio is smart politics. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf97e8abc9ca7b341/698a1ed4b21a9c321950558b/GettyImages-1347928208.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Biden Isn't Making Things Easy for Two of His Potential Successors > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=3dafea68-78c7-467c-b132-0f99bc2f780a&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris [Watch (HLS stream): 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ERuECFhG.m3u8) (7:17)  _Published 2020-12-11. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are Time's 2020 Person of the Year_  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Nov 12, 2021 7:41 PM UTC Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are Time's 2020 Person of the Year  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Nov 12, 2021 7:41 PM UTC _This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/newsletter%5Fopt-in?qs=3a19a0aa35903a2d9f214b74f69a37910b58de73cf3f2b89adc123fac024f0478c72f91010ae9d01f08f46c616068cab3e74726837cd2cce70dac3796e46c2b4) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday._ Thirteen years ago, Barack Obama deployed some of his cold-eyed analysis when it came time to pick a running mate. He wanted to find a partner who was part of the political establishment as the nation got used to the idea of a young newcomer to Washington and the first Black nominee of a major party. He wanted a governing partner, of course, and a reliable mind to challenge his assumptions and occasional hubris. A few more miles on the road wouldn’t hurt either. But the overlooked quality that he wanted was someone who wasn’t going to be knifing him from inside the West Wing. He had considered the likes of Tim Kaine and Evan Bayh, but ultimately that might look too much like the Bill Clinton-Al Gore partnership from 1992, setting up either up for potential runs for the top job. Instead, Obama followed the unlikeliest of playbooks: the one George W. Bush used to select Dick Cheney, a longtime party power player who was never going to try to run for the White House on his own. And Obama picked Joe Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate who months earlier had ended his second White House run in a fast and deafening defeat. Surely, at age 66, Biden would be ready to retire at the end of however long they were in the White House. Well, Obama got part of that bet right. Despite the occasional gaffe and errant political admission, Biden was unfailingly loyal to Obama even when they had deep and sincere disagreements. But this is the part Obama got wrong: Biden wasn’t done chasing the gig he had coveted since his 20s. In the 2016 cycle, the death of Beau Biden was still too raw, and Biden simply wasn’t up for a tough [race](https://fortune.com/2015/10/21/joe-biden-says-he-wont-run-for-president-in-2016/) against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But not long after settling into private life again in early 2017, Biden was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, writing a book and out of elected office for the first time since 1971—and he wanted back in the game. By 2020, he [became](https://time.com/5776543/joe-biden-bernie-sanders-iowa/) the consensus candidate of the Democratic Party, largely on the bet he was the best contender to defeat President Donald Trump. When it came time for Biden to choose his running mate, he broke with Obama and Bush’s example and chose a candidate with a clear political future. He [announced](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-sanders-call-for-national-unity-amid-coronavirus-crisis-but-draw-out-differences-on-health-care-and-other-issues/2020/03/15/eb8ede28-66cc-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc%5Fstory.html) early on it would be a woman, and the then-77-year-old repeatedly described himself as a “[transition candidate](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/bidens-vp-search-puts-spotlight-long-hell-serve-70728525),” implying that a second term might not be in his game plan. Enter Kamala Harris, a candidate who made history in becoming the first female to occupy the VP’s suite on the western edge of the West Wing, as well as the first person of Asian and Black descent to become the nominee. She worked for Biden in major ways, energizing a piece of the electorate that had, until then, been _meh_ on Biden. It wasn’t an overstatement when _The Atlantic_ said Biden made perhaps the [most consequential](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/joe-bidens-vice-president-powerful-history/614161/) VP selection in American political history. Biden never pledged to serve just one term, but he also hasn’t said if he will run for a second. There are plenty of reasons to think Biden is still running in 2024\. The last eligible President _not_ to seek another term was Lyndon Johnson, although he had been on the job for five years by the time he was ready to make the decision because of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in the third year of his Presidency. Before Johnson, you have to go back to right after Reconstruction to find an incumbent who didn’t seek a second term. Which is why Biden’s choice to give Harris one of the thorniest portfolios ever handed to a VP— the [crisis](https://time.com/5951532/migration-factors/) at the Southern border—matters. Biden handed her a nearly impossible task of getting the sprawling U.S. government’s response to the flood of asylum seekers to heel. And, to put it bluntly, there are no good options at her fingertips. A crackdown could hurt her prospects down the line, especially with Hispanic voters who are increasingly a powerful force at the polls. Anything looking soft will ding her with law-and-order voters, especially suburban moms who may see the constant stream of stories on Fox News about migrants murdering Americans and invading the country. Put simply, this is a giant liability for her and everyone in Washington knows it. But Harris isn’t alone. Biden has also handed a political skunk to another member of his Cabinet with White House ambitions. While Pete Buttigieg’s office at the Department of Transportation is nice, there’s little doubt he’ll be looking for an upgrade in the not-too-distant future. On one hand, he gets to [trot](https://www.businessinsider.com/pete-buttigieg-infrastructure-bill-kamala-harris-france-biden-2021-11) out the good news of Biden’s massive [infrastructure](https://time.com/6116363/joe-biden-infrastructure-bill-voters/) [package](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-infrastructure-bill-makes-power-broker-transportation-chief-buttigieg-2021-11-11/) as Harris flew to France on an unrelated mission. On the other, he is also the face of the supply-chain mess that could end up Grinching the holidays. Messing around with this much-anticipated Christmas, after last year’s holidays of isolation, isn’t a winning record to play up in the West Des Moines Whole Foods. His rivals will certainly seize on it. Biden gets that deputizing a problematic portfolio is smart politics. After all, Obama enlisted him to manage the Recovery Act to check waste, fraud and abuse, and Biden successfully kept corruption on the dig out to a minimum. Because this isn’t Hollywood, Cabinet officers don’t challenge the Presidents who appoint them. (Although Signorney Weaver’s [version](http://sigourney) of Hillary Clinton in 2012’s _Political Animals_ remains a lovely alternative-history in which the protagonist quits as Secretary of State to challenge an Obama-esque incumbent, it just isn’t real.) Such a move in the real world would rupture the party and cast them as disloyal opportunists. In that sense, it seems Biden is following the footsteps of Obama and Bush in an important way: staying publicly neutral in the choice for his party’s next nominee. It’s hard to argue that Biden did either Harris or Buttigieg a favor in their tough assignments. Which means both Harris and Buttigieg need to make every effort to make their assignments work to get in pole position when Biden decides his time at the wheel is over. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter._](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/politics?source=dc%5Farticle) ## Transcript [00:03] TIME has always had a special connection to the presidency. [00:06] Every elected president since FDR has been person of the year at some point during their term. [00:11] This is the first time we've also named a vice president as person of the year. [00:15] The Biden-Harris ticket represents something historic. [00:19] Thank you for the honor. [00:20] Thank you very much. Thank you. [00:22] Person of the year is not just about the year that was but about where we're headed, [00:28] and the next four years are going to be an enormous test of them [00:32] and all of us to see whether they can bring about the unity they've promised. [00:39] Do you think this is a do or die moment for democracy? [00:42] This moment was one of those do or die moments. [00:45] Had Trump won I think we would have changed the nature of who we are as a country for a long time. [00:53] You have always been so action oriented, so what is the first thing that you want to do in that role? [01:00] We're at a moment where we are being confronted by many crises that have converged. [01:05] We're talking about a public health crisis. We are in the midst of an economic crisis, [01:10] a long overdue reckoning on racial injustice, and a climate crisis. We got a lot of things that we need [01:16] to handle, and we multitask to address them all. [01:19] Biden was running on a message of unity and healing at a moment when the country was sicker [01:26] and more divided than almost any time in American history. [01:34] This obviously was an election like no other, a campaign like no other. [01:37] The new Supreme Court justice, radical left... [01:40] Will you shut up, man? [01:42] The country is in deep trouble, and Donald Trump was just a symptom to reveal how deep [01:48] the trouble actually is. [01:52] Joe Biden saw what happened in Charlottesville as a symptom of a deeper American disease [02:00] that only he could fix. [02:04] I am convinced that the American public is looking for the possibilities that are available out there. They know [02:11] we're so much better than this. When I ran I said, this is about who we are as a nation, [02:15] who we're going to be, what we want to be, and the American people stepped up. [02:22] It starts at the top, and if you see a divisive leader, it trickles down. [02:28] Worst job of any governor. [02:30] Fake news media. [02:31] The words of a president matter. Whether they're good presidents or bad, they matter. [02:37] When I first announced my candidacy, what I got most criticized for was I said, [02:42] we had to unite America. That we weren't going to respond to hate with hate. [02:46] We had to restore the soul of the country, and I never came off that message [02:51] because that's my objective. [02:53] The promise of a Biden candidacy was always about turning the clock back [02:58] to a sort of gentler, more civil, more decent time in American politics [03:04] but the divisions don't end when the election does. [03:08] What a testament it is to Joe's character that he had the audacity to break one of the most [03:16] substantial barriers that exists in our country and select a woman as his vice president. [03:23] Kamala takes us to that next chapter from the moment she walked across that stage. She is someone that we've [03:31] never seen before in one of the top two jobs in the country. [03:36] I get frustrated because dozens of nations have had women in their highest offices. We have not. [03:41] And I'm proud that he made it plain early, that I'm going to choose a woman to be my vice president, and in that, boom. [03:48] He has now changed American history. [03:53] I went for someone who, if in fact something happened to me, I knew they can take over. That's Kamala. [04:01] Look she is straight as an arrow. She is really, really bright. She is tough but yet she has a heart that [04:10] understands what it's like to be on the other side of prejudice. [04:14] This is a moment in time that is requiring us to fight. [04:17] Joe understands that we have different life experiences, but we also have an incredible amount of shared values. [04:28] We both have spent our entire careers in public service, and I think that's what makes ours a full and very robust partnership. [04:40] Some of the criticisms of him were whether the Black community could trust him to look after their interests [04:45] And so putting the first African American woman on a presidential ticket was a way of repairing that breach in some ways. [04:53] We want to see it for what it is. Because Kamala Harris, it's important that she's there, but we need to see policies. [04:58] We need to understand the limitations of a certain kind of representational politics. [05:04] They're going to have to address the fundamental inequality at the heart of the country, and then they're going to have to figure out how to finally rid us of this [05:12] belief that white people matter more than others. [05:15] What do you say to Black Americans, immigrants, others who feel victimized by the Trump administration and have no interest in uniting with Trump supporters? [05:27] When George Floyd occurred, I was cautioned by some really smart people, you know don't go out and talk about racial inequity, [05:35] systematic racism, don't mention it because you're going to lose the suburbs. My argument all along was the American people do want to see justice. [05:42] And they understood things were out of wack, and I had to change them. [05:49] This was a pandemic election, and we have to realize that we got victory here because the most oppressed [05:56] and suppressed voters fought like hell to make it happen. [06:00] Part of what I think settles some of these questions is to work your behinds off for a more just America. [06:10] I don't think there's ever been a president and vice president to take office in a moment like this where we don't just disagree on issues. [06:16] We disagree on basic facts. What happens to the American experiment in this kind of chaos? [06:22] None of us should be waiting on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to fix everything. We are the people for this moment. [06:31] The goal is a more just America, and people can not only dream dreams but can make those dreams a reality. [06:38] You know, my mother had many sayings, but one of them was, while you may be the first to do many things, [06:44] make sure you're not the last. That's about legacy. That's about creating a pathway. That's about leaving the door [06:49] more open than it was when you walked in. [06:52] I think this is an opportunity to establish that out of our diversity comes enormous, enormous strength. [07:01] We're seeing all over this nation, all cities and all parts of the country, indeed across the world, an outpouring of joy, of hope, renewed faith in tomorrow [07:11] to bring a better day. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6117132/biden-potential-successors/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6117132/biden-potential-successors/"},"headline":"Biden Isn't Making Things Easy for Two of His Potential Successors","datePublished":"2021-11-12T19:41:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T09:16:46.157Z","description":"Joe Biden gets that deputizing a problematic portfolio is smart politics.","url":"https://time.com/6117132/biden-potential-successors/","keywords":["The D.C. 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