POLITICO NEWSROOM

Biden's new reality

Episode Summary

Foreign policy crises have a way of reshuffling the priorities of a president. Joe Biden's standoff with Putin happened to come along just when Biden had lost some urgency in confronting his three big domestic threats. The pandemic is becoming endemic. There’s not much Biden can actually do about inflation. And the key senator standing in the way of Biden’s domestic agenda remains immovable. While the war in Ukraine is just five days old, administration officials and Biden allies are starting to grapple with the ways in which Biden’s presidency may be fundamentally altered.

Episode Notes

Foreign policy crises have a way of reshuffling the priorities of a president. Joe Biden's standoff with Putin happened to come along just when Biden had lost some urgency in confronting his three big domestic threats. The pandemic is becoming endemic. There’s not much Biden can actually do about inflation. And the key senator standing in the way of Biden’s domestic agenda remains immovable. While the war in Ukraine is just five days old, administration officials and Biden allies are starting to grapple with the ways in which Biden’s presidency may be fundamentally altered.

 

Raghu Manavalan is a senior editor for POLITICO audio.