Joe Biden gets lost in Trump’s shadow

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a Time magazine Person of the Year event at the New York Stock Exchange.

Like Donald Trump or dislike him, hate him or love him, doesn’t matter; you have to see that what we are witnessing now is truly remarkable, with no precedent.

He is essentially functioning as the sitting president. In the past, a man was elected and sat in his house, met potential cabinet members and courteously, carefully kept out of the news except to make a statement announcing a new nominee. The incumbent was president until Inauguration Day. That’s the way it was even in 2016; Barack Obama was still seen as president after Trump was elected. All that has changed.

Trump is the locus of all eyes. He goes to Europe for the opening of Notre-Dame. “The protocols they put in place for his arrival were those of a sitting president, not an incoming one,” a Trump loyalist and former staffer said by phone.

He holds meetings with Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron. There he is chatting with Prince William. Why not the Prime Minister? Because the British know Trump is enchanted by royalty and doesn’t want to be with some grubby Labour pol.

Trump talks of new tariffs on Canada, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rushes to Mar-a-Lago. After their meeting, Trump refers to him on Truth Social as governor of “the Great State of Canada”. (The Babylon Bee follows up with a headline: “Trump Tells Trudeau He Won’t Annex Canada If They Admit Their Bacon is Just Ham.”)

The government of Syria falls and the world turns to America for its stand. It comes, quickly, from Trump: “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT … DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” The next day, Joe Biden characterises the moment as one of “risk and uncertainty” for the region. Was there ever a moment that wasn’t one of risk and uncertainty for the region? Trump tells Vladimir Putin that now that he has abandoned Syria, he should make a deal to end the war in Ukraine. “I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act. China can help. The world is waiting!”

Trump’s cabinet picks – especially the highly questionable ones – dominate the discourse in a country that hardly ever notices a cabinet nomination below that of secretary of state. His representatives, most famously Elon Musk, are greeted on Capitol Hill with a rapture comparable to past visits by heroic leaders of allied nations.

Joe Biden delivers remarks on his economic accomplishments at the Brookings Institution.

Trump hasn’t overshadowed Biden; he has eclipsed him. A former senior official in Trump’s first term told NBC News a few days ago that Trump “is already basically running things, and he’s not even president yet”.

To some degree the status shift is expected. Trump is the future, Biden the past; Trump wide-awake, Biden sleepy. The 46th President is a worn tyre, the tread soft and indistinct. With the pardon of his son he lost stature.

Also, Trump makes other leaders nervous, as he enjoys pointing out. They can neither predict him nor imitate him, so they can’t take their eyes off him. And Biden has been rocked by something he knew in the abstract that has become all too particular: after 50 years at the centre of public life he has been dropped, cast aside, because it was about power all along and not about him.

A president, however, still has the machinery – the National Security Council, the State Department, the nuclear football. I can hardly believe our biggest adversaries don’t capitalise on this split presidency, this confusion. For all our woes you sometimes forget what a lucky country we are.

Here I mention a part of the amazing interregnum that I think is important, one that his friends and staffers speak of. Trump is calmer and more confident than he has been in the past. It is a commonplace to say surviving a shooting – that a bullet came within an inch or so of his brain – would change anyone, even a man in his eighth decade, even a man with fairly brittle ingrained views, even Trump. But all of his friends go back to this as they speak of the Trump they’re seeing now. They think it took time for it to be absorbed and settle in. They see him as at least presenting himself in an altered way.

The former staffer said by phone, “Right now he is extremely relaxed.” It isn’t only the assassination attempt. “Everyone thought he was gonna change in a way that would be normal for most people to change – an outward reflection, more humble. I laugh when people say, ‘Normally, a president would …’. Don’t use ‘normal’ with him.”

But after the second assassination attempt was thwarted, at Trump’s golf course, it had impact. “Trump began to recognise, not in an unappreciative way but in a reality way, that he’d been spared. It gave him a stronger sense of confidence, some extra level of relaxation and of determination. He feels the American people are in trouble and if he can be a small part of fixing that, he must.”

The former staffer said Trump felt “this wasn’t an election, it was a vindication”. The court cases, the indictments, the impeachments – “all these things against Donald Trump, and he doesn’t just come back, he roars back in a way that defies logic, reason and history. Few can fathom this.” He meant the history, but also its effect on Trump.

Something else, he said. When Trump was elected in 2016, his policy priorities and intentions weren’t fully clear. They are now, and have been popularised. “He knows the mission he laid out to the people – sane border policy, unleash energy, monetise ‘the liquid gold’, make the tax cuts permanent – there’s an air of confidence about his mission now, and an understanding of the systems in place.” He is living something few get to live: “If I could do it all over again.”

A different observer, who has seen Trump up close, said this week, “This is the best version of Donald Trump we will see.”

Back to the former staffer: “The gravity of this historic moment cannot be overstated. He has a level of swagger, a new level. People say, ‘Can I get the policy without the personality?’ No, you need a certain level of ‘I don’t give a damn.’ If you think he had it the first time, Katy bar the door.”

He had a prediction: “This has the potential to be historic in a way that only a handful of administrations have been. We remember some administrations with a level of history-altering moments. This one’s gonna have a lot.”

What about the potential for wrongdoing, such as using government to abuse foes? “He’s said a million times his revenge is going to be success. When Trump wins, he lets bygones be bygones.”