White House correspondents analyze Biden’s presidency at first IOP forum of 2022 | News
Four veteran White House correspondents examined the challenges facing President Joe Biden after wrapping up his first year in office, ranging from foreign policy to the Covid-19 pandemic, at the inaugural John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. of the Year from the Institute of Politics.
During a virtual forum on Wednesday, David E. Sanger ’82, White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times; Abby D. Phillip ’10, senior political correspondent for CNN; Kelly O’Donnell, senior White House correspondent for NBC News; and Dan Balz, Washington Post Chief Correspondent and IOP Senior Researcher, analyzed the key issues that concern Biden as he prepares to lead the Democrats in the midterm elections in November.
The reporters kicked off the event by discussing news that broke Wednesday that Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer was considering retirement. Phillip, a former editor of Crimson News, said his retirement was indicative of a decrease in bipartisanship in Washington, D.C.
“The confirmation partisanship is probably here to stay,” Phillip said. “I think it’s probably the case that if there’s a Senate that’s different from the president’s party sitting in the White House, there’s unlikely to be a move on a Supreme Court justice. “
O’Donnell said the Biden administration would welcome Breyer’s retirement announcement at a time when polls show African-American voters losing faith in the president. During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court.
“Here is a moment when he can choose a woman of color who stands out, who will be at the center of many national discussions and who will have a chance to have a huge impact in the future,” she said. “This is a great legacy opportunity for President Biden.”
The panel also discussed the legislative setbacks Biden has faced and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Biden administration came in knowing that was task one — that they had to deal with the pandemic and they had to do something as quickly as possible,” Balz said. “Just when they hoped to declare, if not full victory, at least freedom is around the corner, they were slammed by the Delta variant.”
Sanger, a lecturer at the Kennedy School, spoke about the Russian troop buildup on the border with Ukraine and its implications for US foreign policy.
“I can’t tell you enough how crisis mode the Biden administration really is on this,” he said.
The event ended with a discussion of how the Biden administration’s desire to focus its foreign policy agenda on China was sidelined by the Russian military presence on the Ukrainian border.
In an interview after the forum, Sanger – a former editor of Crimson News – said his love for IOP stemmed from his time as an undergraduate at Harvard.
“It’s just a wonderful place where the real world meets the theory and sometimes the practice of what is taught at the Kennedy School,” he said.
—Editor Miles J. Herszenhorn can be reached at miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MHerszenhorn.
